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LoKD Alfred Tennyson, 






A\AUD 

AND OTHER POE/nS 




BY 



Alfred Lord Tennyson 

POET LAUREATE 





CHICAGO 

W. B. CONKEY COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

1 



39088 



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qo(> 



Library of Congress. 

"< WO Copies Peceiweo 
' AUG 27 1900 

Cnpyrighl (vitry 

SECOND COPY. 

bt^'\y/%r^ to 

OROEK DIVISION, 

SEP 1 1900 



Copyright, 1900, by W. B. Conkey Company. 



74009 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

The Princess; A Medley: 

Prologue .y^. , J e 5 

Part 1 1^. . ? 15 

Part II 27 

Part III ; 47 

Part IV 63 

Part V :..... 85 

Part VI 109 

Part VII 125 

Conclusion , 138 

Maud; A Monodrama: 

Part I / 143 

Part II.... 185 

Part III 199 

Enoch Arden c 203 

To E. Fitzgerald , 235 

Tiresias 237 

The Wreck 245 



THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY, 



PROLOGUE, 



Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day- 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people: thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighboring borough with their Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son, — the son 
A Walter, too, — with others of our set, 
Five others : we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter showed the 

house, 
Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their 

names, 
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park, 
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; 
And on the tables every clime and age 
Jumbled together; celts and calumets. 
Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans 
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, 
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs 

5 



6 PROLOGUE. 

From the iles of palm ; and higher on the walls, 
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 
His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. 

And **this,'' he said, *Svas Hugh's at Agin- 

court : 
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon: 
A good knight he ! we keep a chronicle 
With all about him" — which he brought, and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with 

knights, 
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 
Who laid about them at their wills and died; 
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the 

gate, 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her 

walls. 

**0 miracle of women," said the book, 
*'0 noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
By this wild king to force her to his wish. 
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's 

death, 
But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost — 
Her stature, more than mortal in the burst 
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, 
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, 
She trampled some beneath her horse's heels. 
And some were whelm'd with missiles of the 

wall, 
And some were push'd with lances from the 

rock. 



PROLOGUE. 7 

And part were drovvn'd within the whirling 

brook ; 
O miracle of noble womanhood!" 

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; 
And, I all rapt in this, **Come out," he said, 
**To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth 
And sister Lilia with the rest." We went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thro* the park : strange was the sight to 

me; 
For all the sloping pasture murmured, sown 
With happy faces and with holiday. 
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads: 
The patient leaders of their Institute 
Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of 

stone 
And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 
The fountain of the moment, playing, now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls. 
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 
Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down 
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
A cannon: Echo answered in her sleep 
From hollow fields : and here were telescopes 
For azure views ; and there a group of girls 
In circle waited, whom the electric shock 
Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the 

lake 
A little clock-work steamer, paddling plied 
And shook the lilies: perched about the knolls 
A dozen angry models jetted steam: 
A petty railway ran ; a fire-balloon 
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves 



8 PROLOGUE. 

And dropt a fairy parachute and past: 
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 
They flash *d a saucy message to and fro 
Between the mimic stations ; so that sport 
Went hand in hand with Science : otherwhere 
Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd 
And stump'd the wicket; babies roU'd about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and 

maids 
Arranged a country dance, and flew thro* light 
And shadow, while the twanging violin 
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead 
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to 

end. 

Strange was the sight and smacking of the 

time; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at length 
Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy- 

claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire. 
Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they 

gave 
The park, the crowd, the house; but all 

within 
The sward was trim as any garden lawn : 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbor seats: and there was Ralph 

himself 
A broken statue propt against the wall, 
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, 
Half child, half woman as she was, had wound 



PROLOGUE. 9 

A scarf of orange round the stony helm, 
And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, 
That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 
Glow like sunbeam; near his tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, 
And there we joined them: then the maiden 

Aunt 
Took this fair day for text, and from it preach *d 
An universal culture for the crowd, 
And all things great; but we, un worthier, told 
Of college: he had climb'd across the spikes. 
And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, 
And he had breath'd the Proctor's dogs; and 

one 
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men, 
But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain 
Veneered with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought 
My book to mind: and opening this I read 
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her 

walls. 
And much I praised her nobleness, and 

** Where," 
Ask'd Walter, patting Lilians head (she lay 
Beside him) *' lives there such a woman now?" 

Quick answer 'd Lilia, ** There are thousands 
now 
Such women, but convention beats them down : 

2 Princess 



10 PROLOGUE. 

It is but bringing up; no more than that: 
You men have done it: how I hate you all! 
Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were 
Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then. 
That love to keep us children ! O I wish 
That I were some great princess, I would build 
Far off from men a college like a man's, 
And I would teach them all that men are 

taught ; 
We are twice as quick!" And here she shook 

aside 
The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. 

And one said smiling, ** Pretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and 

flaunt 
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
1 think they should not wear our rusty gowns, 
But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph 
Who shines so in the corner; yet I fear, 
If there were many Lilias in the brood. 
However deep you might embower the nest. 
Some boy would spy it. ' ' 

At this upon the sward 
She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot: 
** That's your light way; but I would make it 

death 
For any male thing but to peep at us. ** 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she 
laugh 'd; 
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her, she: 



PROLOGUE. 11 

But Walter haird a score of names upon her. 

And ** petty Ogress/' and ^'ungrateful Puss," 

And swore he long'd at college, only long'd, 

All else was well, for she-society. 

They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd 

At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; 

They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of 

deans; 
They rode; they betted; made a hundred 

friends. 
And caught the blossom of the flying terms, 
But miss*d the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke. 
Part banter, part affection. 

'*True," she said, 
**We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us. 

much. 
I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did." 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye„ 
And takes a lady's finger with all care, 
And bites it for true heart and not for harm, 
So he with Lilia's. Daintly she shriek'd 
And wrung it. **Doubt my word again!'* he 

said. 
** Come, listen! here is proof that you were 

miss'd: 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read; 
And there we took one tutor as to read : 
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square 
Were out of season : never man, I think, 
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he: 
For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet, 



12 PROLOGUE. 

And our long walks were stript as bare as 

brooms, 
We did but talk you over, pledge you all 
In wassail ; often, like as many girls — 
Sick for the holies and the yews of home — 
As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 
And what's my thought and when and where 

and how, 
And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 
As here at Christmas.'* 

She remembered that: 
A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it 

more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these — what kind of tales did men tell men, 
She wonder'd, by themselves? 

A half-disdain 
Perch*d on the pouted blossom of her lips: 
And Walter nodded at me; ''He began, 
The rest would follow, each in turn; and so 
We forged a sevenfold story. Kind! what 

kind? 
Chimeras, crochets, Christmas solecisms. 
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 
Time by the fire in winter. ' ' 

'*Kill him now. 
The tyrant! kill him in the summer too,** 
Said Lilia; "Why not now?" the maiden Aunt. 
**Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? 
A tale for summer as befits the time. 
And something it should be to suit the place, 
Heroic, for a hero lies beneath, 
Grave, solemn !" 



PROLOGUE. 13 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd 
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 
An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, 
Hid in the ruins ; till the maiden Aunt 
(A little sense of wrong had touch 'd her face 
With color) turn'd to me with "As you will; 
Heroic if you will, or what you will, 
Or be yourself your hero if you will.'* 

**Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamor *d he, 
**And make her some great Princess, six feet 

high, 
Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you 
The Prince to win her!" 

**Then follow me, the Prince," 
I answer'd, '*each be hero in his turn! 
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. — 
Heroic seems our Princess as required — 
But something made to suit with Time and 

place, 
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
A talk of college and of ladies* rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them 

all— 
This were a medley! We should have him 

back 
Who told the * Winter's tale' to do it for us. 
No matter: we will say whatever comes. 
And let the ladies sing us, if they will. 
For time to come, some ballad or a song 
To give us breathing-space." 



14 PROLOGUE. 

So I began, 
And the rest follow'd: and the women sang 
Betvv'een the rougher voices of the men, 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind: 
And here I give the story and the songs. 



THE PRINCESS. 15 



PART I. 

A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous, as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl. 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 

There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold. 
Dying, that none of all our blood should know 
The shadow from the substance, and that one 
Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. 
For so, my mother said, the story ran. 
And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, 
An old and strange affection of the house. 
Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows 

what: 
On a sudden in the midst of men and day, 
And while I walked and talk'd as heretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts. 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head 

cane. 
And paw'd his beard, and mutter 'd '* cata- 
lepsy. '* 
My mother pitying made a thousand prayers; 
My mother was as mild as any saint. 
Half-canonized by all that looked on her, 



16 THE PRINCESS. 

So gracious was her tact and tenderness : 
But my good father thought a king a king ; 
He cared not for the affection of the house ; 
He held his scepter like a pedant's wand 
To lash offense, and with long arms and hands 
Reached out, and pick'd offenders from the 

mass 
For judgment. 

Now it chanced that I had been. 
While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
To one, a neighboring Princess: she to me 
Was proxy- wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old ; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart. 
And one dark tress; and all around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about 

their queen. 

But when the days drew nigh that I should 

wed, 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought 

back 
A present, a great labor of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 
Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts ; 
He said their was a compact ; that was true : 
But then she had a will; was he to blame? 
And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 

That morning in the presence room I stood 
With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends : 



THE PRINCESS. IT 

The first, a gentleman of broken means 

(His father's fault) but given to starts and 

bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 
And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's 

face 
Grow long and troubled like a rising moon, 
Inflam'd with wrath: he started on his feet, 
Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and 

rent 
The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt ; and at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
And bring her in a whirlwind: then he chew'd 
The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his 

spleen, 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. *'My father, let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error lies 
In this report, this answer of a king, 
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable : 
Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 
Whatever my grief to find her less than fame, 
May rue the bargain made." And Florian 

said: 
**I have a sister at the foreign court, 
Who moves about the Princess ; she, you know^ 
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence : 
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear. 
The lady of three castles in that land: 



18 THE PRINCESS. 

Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean.'* 
And Cyril whisper 'd; **Take me with you too. " 
Then laughing, **what, if these weird seizures 

come 
Upon you in those lands, and no one near 
To point you out the shadow from the truth ! 
Take me; I'll serve you better in a strait; 
I grate on rusty hinges here:" but'* No!" 
Roar'd the rough king, **you shall not; we 

ourself 
Will crush her petty maiden fancies dead 
In iron gauntlets: break the council up." 

But when the council broke, I rose and past 
Thro' the wild woods that hung about the 

town; 
Found a still place, and pluck 'd her likeness 

out; 
Laid it on the flowers, and watch'd it lying 

bathed 
In the green gleam of dewy-tassel'd trees: 
What were those fancies? wherefore break her 

troth? 
Proud look'd the lips: but while I meditated 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the 

shrieks 
Of the wild woods together ; and a Voice 
Went with it, ** Follow, follow, thou shalt win. " 

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 
Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived, 
Cat-foot'd through the town and half in dread 



THE PRINCESS. 19 

To hear my father's clamor at our backs 
With Ho ! from some bay-window shake the 

night; 
But all was quiet: from the bastion'd walls 
Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt 
And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost 
To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange, 
And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, 
We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, 
And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama; crack'd and small his 

voice. 
But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind 
On glassy water drove his cheek in lines; 
A little dry old man, without a star. 
Not like a king ; three days he feasted us. 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came. 
And my betroth 'd. "You do us, Prince,*' he 

said 
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 
''AH honor. We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 
I think the year in which our olives failed. 
I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, 
With my full heart : but there were widows 

here, 
Two widows. Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; 
They fed their theories, in and out of place 
Maintaining that with equal husbandry 
The woman were an equal to the man. 
They harp'd on this; with this our banquets 

rang; 



20 THE PRINCESS. 

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk;^ 

Nothing but this; my very ears were hot 

To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter 

held, 
Was all in all: they had but been, she thought, 
As children ; they must lose the child, assume 
The woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, 
Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, 
But all she is and does is awful ; odes 
About this losing of the child ; and rhymes 
And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 
Beyond all reason: these the women sang; 
And they that know such things— I sought but 

peace ; 
No critic I — ^would call them masterpieces : 
They mastered me. At last she begg'd a boon, 
A certain summer-palace which I have 
Hard by your father's frontier; I said no, 
Yet being an easy man, gave it ; and there^ 
All wild to found an University 
For maidens, on the spur she fled ; and more 
We know not, — only this: they see no men, 
Not ev*n her brother Arac, nor the twins 
Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon 

her 
As a kind of paragon ; and I 
(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed 
Dispute betwixt myself and mine ; but since 
(And I confess with right) you think me bound 
In some sort, I can give you letters to her ; 
And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance 
Almost at naked nothing." 

Thus the king; 
And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 



THE PRINCESS. 21 

With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 
But chafing me on fire to find my bride) 
Went forth again with both my friends. We 

rode 
Many a long league back to the North. At last 
From hills, that look'd across a land of hope. 
We dropt with evening on a rustic town 
Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, 
Close at the boundary of the liberties; 
There, entered an old hostel, call'd mine host 
To council, plied him with his richest wines, 
And show*d the late-writ letters of the king. 

He with a long low sibilation, stared 
As blank as death in marble; then exclaim 'd 
Averring it was clear against all rules 
For any man to go: but as his brain 
Began to mellow, *'If the king," he said, 
*'Had given us letters, was he bound to speak? 
The king would bear him out;" and at the 

last — 
The summer of the vine in all his veins — 
'' No doubt that we might make it worth his 

while. 
She once had past that way; he heard her 

speak ; 
She scared him; life! he never saw the like; 
She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave : 
And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there ; 
He always made a point to post with mares; 
His daughter and his housemaid were the 

boys : 
The land, he understood, for miles about 



22 THE PRINCESS. 

Was tiird by women; all the swine were sows^ 
And all the dogs"— 

But while he jested thus, 
A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in 

act, 
Remembering how we three presented Maid 
Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast. 
In masque or pageant at my father's court. 
We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; 
He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake 
The midriff of despair with laughter, holp 
To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes 
We rustled : him we gave a costly bribe 
To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, 
And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We foUow'd up the river as we rode, 
And rode till midnight when the college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 
And linden alley : then we past an arch, 
Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; 
And some inscription ran along the front. 
But deep in shadow: further on we gain'd 
A little street half garden and half house ; 
But scarce could hear each other speak for 

noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers 

falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
Of fountains spouted up and showering down 
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose: 
And all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 



THE PRINCESS. 23 

There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, 
By two sphere lamps blazon 'd like Heaven and 

Earth 
With constellation and with continent, 
Above an entry: riding in, we call'd; 
A plump-arm *d Ostleress and a stable wench 
Came running at the call, and help'd us down. 
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 
Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave 
Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost 
In laurel: her we ask*d of that and this. 
And who were tutors. **Lady Blanche,*' she 

said, 
'*And Lady Psyche." '* Which was prettiest, 
Best-natured?*'^ '* Lady Psyche.*' *'Hersare 

we/* 
One voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote, 
In such a hand as when a field of corn 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East ; 
** Three ladies of the Northern empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll them with your 

own, 
As Lady Psyche's pupils.*' 

This I seard: 
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll. 
And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung. 
And raised the binding bandage from his eyes : 
I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; 
And then to bed, where half in doze I seem*d 
To float about a glimmering night, and watch 
A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swell 
On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. 



As thro* the land at eve we went, 

And pluck' d the ripen *d ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out I know not why. 

And kiss'd again with tears. 
And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears, 
When we fall out with those we love 

And kiss again with tears ! 
For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears. 



25 



THE PRINCESS. 27 



PART II. 

At break of day the College Portress came: 

She brought us Academic silks, in hue 

The lilac, with a silken hood to each, 

And zoned with gold; and now when these 

were on. 
And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons. 
She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 
The Princess Ida waited ; out we paced, 
I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 
All round with laurel, issued in a court 
Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths 
Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 
Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of 

flowers. 
The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes, 
Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst; 
And here and there on lattice edges lay 
Or book or lute ; but hastily we past, 
And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat. 
With two tame leopards couch 'd beside her 

throne 
All beauty compass'd in a female form, 
The Princess; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, 
Than our man's earth: such eyes were in her 

head. 



28 THE PRINCESS. 

And so much grace and power, breathing down 
From over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
Lived thro* her to the tips of her long hands, 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and 
said : 

*'We give you welcome: not without redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime, 
And that full voice which circles round the 

grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What! are the ladies of your land so tall?" 
*'We of the court,'* said Cyril. **From the 

court.** 
She answer'd, **then ye know the Prince?** and 

he: 
**The climax of his age! as tho* there were 
One rose in all the world, your Highness that, 
He worships your ideal:** she replied: 
*'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men, 
Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds would 

seem 
As arguing of knowledge and of power; 
Your language proves you still the child. 

Indeed, 
We dream not of him: when we set our hand 
To this great work, we purposed with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will do well, 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
The tricks, which make us toys of men, that 



THE PRINCESS. 29 

Some future time, if so indeed, you will, 
You may with those self-styled our lords ally 
Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with 
scale. ' ' 

At those high words, we conscious of our- 
selves. 
Perused the matting ; then an oflScer 
Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these : 
Not for three years to correspond with home ; 
Not for three years to cross the liberties ; 
Not for three years to speak with any men; 
And many more, which hastily subscribed, 
We enter'd on the boards; and *'Now, " she 

cried, 
**Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, 

our hall ! 
Our statues ! — not of those that men desire, 
Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode. 
Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she 
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 
The foundress of the Babylonian wall. 
The Carian Artemisia strong in war. 
The Rhodope, that built the pyramid, 
Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 
That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 
Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose 
Convention, since to look on noble forms 
Makes noble thro* the sensuous organism 
That which is higher. O lift your natures up: 
Embraceour aims : work out yourfreedom, girls, 
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seaVd: 
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave. 
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 



30 THE PRINCESS. 

And slander, die. Better not be at all 
Than not be noble. Leave us: you may go: 
To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 
The fresh arrivals of the week before ; 
For they press in from all the provinces, 
And fill the hive." 

She spoke, and bowing waved 
Dismissal : back again we crost the court 
To Lady Psyche's: as we entered in. 
There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
A patient range of pupils ; she herself 
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 
A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, 
And on the hither side, or so she look'd, 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, headed like a star. 
Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
Aglaia slept. We sat : the Lady glanced : 
Then Florian, but no livelier than the dame 
That whispered '*Asses' ears," among th^ 

sedge, 
' ' My sister. " * * Comely, too, by all that's fair, ' ' 
Said Cyril. ''O hush, hush!" and she began. 

**This world was once a fluid haze of light, 
Till toward the center set the starry tides, 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets : then the monster, then the man ; 
Tattooed or woaded, winter-clad in skins, 
Raw from the prime, and crushing down his 

mate; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest." 



THE PRINCESS. 31 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past; 
Glanced at the legendary Amazon 
As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; 
Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
Of empire, and the woman's state in each, 
How far from just; till warming with her 

theme 
She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique 
And little-footed China, touched on Mahomet 
With much contempt, and came to chivalry : 
When some respect, however slight, was paid 
To woman, superstition all awry: 
However then commenced the dawn : a beam 
Had slanted forward, falling in a land 
Of promise ; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, 
Their debt of thanks to her who first had 

dared 
To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 
Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 
None lordlier than themselves but that which 

made 
Woman and man. She had founded; they must 

build. 
Here might they learn whatever men were 

taught: 
Let them not fear : some said their heads were 

less: 
Some men's were small; not they the least of 

men ; 
For often fineness compensated size: 
Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew 



32 THE PRINCESS. 

With using; thence the man's, if more was 

more ; 
He took advantage of his strength to be 
First in the field : some ages had been lost ; 
But woman ripen*d earlier, and her life 
Was longer ; and albeit their glorious names 
Were fewer, scattered stars, yet since in truth 
The highest is the measure of the man. 
And not the Kaflfir, Hottentot, Malay, 
Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 
But Homer, Plato, Verulean; even so 
With woman : and in arts of government 
Elizabeth and others ; arts of war 
The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace 
Sappho and others vied with any man: 
And, last not least, she who had left her place, 
And bow'd her state to them, that they might 

grow 
To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 
In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 
Of ancient influence and scorn. 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
Dilating on the future; * 'everywhere 
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the world. 
Two in the liberal offices of life. 
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
Of science, and the secrets of the mind: 
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more: 
And evervwhere the broad and bounteous 

Earth 
Should bear a double growth of those rare 

souls. 



THE PRINCESS. 33 

Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the 
world." 

She ended here, and beckon'd us: the rest 
Parted; and glowing full-faced welcome, she 
Began to address us, and was moving on 
In gratulation, till as when a boat 
Tacks, and the slackened sail flaps, all her voice 
Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, 
*'My brother!" *'Well, my sister." **0," she 

said, 
**What do you here? and in this dress? and 

these? 
Why, who are these? a wolf within the fold! 
A pack of wolves ! the Lord be gracious to me ! 
A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all!" 
**No plot, no plot," he answered. ** Wretched 

boy. 
How saw you not the inscription on the gate, 
'Let no man enter in on pain of death?' " 
** And if I had, " he answered, **who could think 
The softer Adams of your Acadame, 
O sister Sirens tho' they be, were such 
As chanted on the blanching bones of men?" 
**But you will find it otherwise," she said. 
*'You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vow 
Binds me to speak, and O that iron will. 
That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, 
The Princess." **Well, then, Psyche, take my 

life. 
And nail me like a weasel on a grange 
For warning : bury me beside the gate, 
And cut this epitaph above my bones : 
*Here lies a brother by a sister slain, 

3 Princess 



34 THE PRINCESS. 

All for the common good of womankind. * " 
*'Let me die, too," said Cyril, *' having seen 
And heard the Lady Psyche. " 

I struck in : 
** Albeit so mask'd, Madam, I love the truth; 
Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman, affianced years ago 
To the Lady Ida ; here, for here she was. 
And thus (what other way was left) I came.'* 
*'0 Sir, O Prince, I have no country; none; 
If any, this; but none. Whatever I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
Affianced, Sir? love- whispers may not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
Who am not mine, say, live: the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls." 
'* Yet pause," I said: *'for that inscription there, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein, 
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, 
To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be, 
If more and acted on, what follows? war; 
Your own work marr*d : for this your Academe, 
Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 
With all fair theories only made to gild 
A stormless summer. " * * Let the Princess judge 
Of that, " she said: * 'farewell, Sir — and to you. 
I shudder at the sequel, but I go." 

s 

**Are you that Lady Psyche," I rejoin'd, 
'*The fifth in line from that old Florian, 
Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 



THE PRINCESS. 35 

As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, 
And all else fled? we point to it, and we say, 
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold, 
But branches current yet in kindred veins." 

**Areyou that Psyche,'' Florian added ; **she 
With whom I sang about the morning hills. 
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly, 
And snared the squirrel of the glen? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow. 
To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 
My sickness down to happy dreams? are you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one? 
You were that Psyche, but what are you 

now?" 
**You are that Psyche," Cyril said, **for whom 
I would be that for ever which I seem, 
Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, 
And gleam your scatter 'd sapience." 

Then once more, 
**Are you that Lady Psyche," I began, 
*'That on her bridal morn before she past 
From all her old companions, when the king 
Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills; 
That were there any of our people there 
In want or peril, there was one to hear 
And help them? look! for such are these and 

I." 
*'Are you that Psyche," Florian ask'd, '*to 

whom. 
In gentler days, your arrow- wounded fawn 
Came flying while you sat beside the well? 



36 THE PRINCESS. 

The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, 
And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the 

blood 
Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 
That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you 

wept. 
O by the bright head of my little niece, 
You were that Psyche, and what are you now?" 
**You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, 
**The mother of the sweetest little maid, 
That ever crow*d for kisses." 

**Outuponit!" 
She answer'd, **peace! and why should I not 

play 
The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? 
Him you call great: he for the common weal. 
The fading politics of mortal Rome, 
As I might slay this child, if good need were. 
Slew both his sons : and I, shall I, on whom 
The secular emancipation turns 
Of half this world, be swerved from right to 

save 
A prince, a brother? a little will I yield. 
Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 
O hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 
My conscience will not count me fleckless; 

yet — 
Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 
You perish) as you came, to slip away 
To-day, to-morrow, soon : it shall be said, 
These women were too barbarous, would not 

learn; 



THE PRINCESS. 37 

They fled, who might have shamed us : prom- 
ise, all." 

What could we else, we promised each ; and 
she, 
Like some wild creature , newly-caged, com- 
menced 
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
By Florian ; holding out her lily arms 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said : 
*'I knew you at the first: tho' you have grow'n 
You scarce have altered: I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. I gave thee to death 
My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it 
Our mother, is she well?" 

With that she kiss*d 
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the 

hearth. 
And far illusion, till the gracious dews 
Began to listen and to fall : and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, 
*'I brought a message here from Lady 

Blanche." 
Back started she, and turning round we saw 
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, 
That clad her like an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's color) with her lips apart, 



38 THE PRINCESS. 

And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes, 
As bottom agates seen to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 

So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
Then Lady Psyche, ** Ah— Melissa — you! 
You heard us?" and Melissa, **0 pardon me! 
I heard, I could not help it, did not wish: 
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 
Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, 
To give three gallant gentlemen to death/' 
**I trust you,'* said the other, **for we two 
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine : 
But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or 

prove 
The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear 
This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 
My honor, these their lives." **Ah, fear me 

not," 
Replied Melissa; **no — I would not tell, 
No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, 
No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard 

things 
That Sheba came to ask of Solomon. " 
**Be it so," the other, **that we still may lead 
The new light up, and culminate in peace. 
For Solomon may come to Sheba yet." 
Said Cyril, *' Madam, he the wisest man 
Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 
Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you 
(Tho' Madam you should answer, we would ask) 
Less welcome find among us, if you came 
Among us, debtors for our lives to you. 



THE PRINCESS. 39 

Myself for something more." He said not 

what, 
But ** Thanks/* she answer 'd **Go: we have 

been too long 
Together : keep your hoods about the face ; 
They do so that affect abstraction here. 
Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
Your promise : all, I trust, may yet be well. ' ' 

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child. 
And held her round the knees against his waist, 
And blew the swoll'n cheek of a trumpeter. 
While Psyche watch 'd them, smiling, and the 

child 
Push'd her flat hand against his face and 

laughed; 
And thus our conference closed. 

And then we stroU'd 
For half the day thro' stately theaters 
Bench 'd crescent- wise. In each we sat, we 

heard 
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
The circle rounded under female hands 
With flawless demonstration: followed then 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
With scraps of thundrous Epic lifted out 
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 
And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 
That on the stretch 'd forefinger of all Time 
Sparkle forever : then we dipt in all 
That treats of whatsoever is, the state, 
The total chronicles of man, the mind, 
The morals, something of the frame, the rock, 



40 THE PRINCESS. 

The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the 

flower, 
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest. 
And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 
Till like three horses that have broken fence, 
And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 
We issued gorged with knowledge, and I 

spoke : 
"Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we." 
*' They hunt old trails,'* said Cyril, **very well; 
But when did woman ever yet invent?" 
** Ungracious!" answered Florian; *'have you 

learnt 
No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 
The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?*' 
**0 trash,'* he said, **but with a kernel in it. 
Should I not call her wise, who made me wise? 
And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash. 
Than if my brainpan were an empty hull, 
And every Muse tumbled a science in. 
A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls. 
And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 
Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O 
With me, Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy, 
The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 
The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too; 
He cleft me thro* the stomacher; and now 
What think you of it, Florian? do I chase 
The substance or the shadow? will it hold? 
I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 
No ghostly hauntings, like his Highness. I 
Flatter myself that always everywhere 
I know the substance when I see it. Well, 



THE PRINCESS. 41 

Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is she 
The sweet proprietress a shadow? If not, 
Shall those three castles patch my tatter*d coat? 
For dear are those three castles to my wants, 
And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, 
And two dear things are one of double worth, 
And much I might have said, but that my 

zone 
Unmanned me; then the Doctors! O to hear 
The Doctors ! O to watch the thirsty plants 
Imbibing ! once or twice I thought to roar, 
To break my chain, to shake my mane : but 

thou, 
Modulate me. Soul of mincing mimicry ! 
Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 
Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 
Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; 
Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and 

looso 
A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, 
Where they like swallows coming out of time 
Will wonder why they came: but hark the 

bell 
For dinner, let us go!*' 

And in we streamed 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair 
In colors gayer than the morning mist, 
The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers. 
How might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine 
own 

4 Princess 



42 THE PRINCESS. 

Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, 

The second-sight of some Astraean age, 

Sat compass'd with professors: they, the while, 

Discussed a doubt and tost it to and fro: 

A clamor thicken 'd, mixt with inmost terms 

Of art and science : Lady Blanche alone 

Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 

With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 

Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 

In act of spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens : there 
One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 
In this hand held a volume as to read, 
And smoothed a petted peacock down with 

that: 
Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by. 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 
Hung, shadow'd from the heat: some hid and 

sought 
In the orange thickets : others tost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter : others lay about the lawns. 
Of the older sort, and murmured that their 

May 
Was passing: what was learning unto them? 
They wished to marry; they could rule a house; 
Men hated learned women : but we three 
Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came 
Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
That harm'd not: then day droopt; the chapel 

bells 



THE PRINCESS. 43 

Caird lis: we left the walks; we mixt with 

those 
Six hundred maidens clad in purest white, 
Before two streams of light from wall to wall, 
While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 
Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 
A long melodious thunder to the sound 
Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies. 
The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 
A blessing on her labors for the world. 



Sweet and low, sweet and low. 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow. 

Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go, 
Come from the dying moon, and blow, 

Blow him again to me ; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest. 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon : 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 



45 



THE PRINCESS. 47 



PART III. 

Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care 
Descended to the court that lay three parts 
In shadow, but the Muses* heads were touched 
Above the darkness from their native East. 

There, while we stood beside the fount, and 

watch'd 
Or seemed to watch the dancing bubble, 

approached 
Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, 
Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 
The circled Iris of a night of tears ; 
**And fly/* she cried, '*0 fly, while yet you 

may! 
My mother knows:'* and when I ask*d her 

*'how,** 
**My fault,** she wept, **my fault! and yet not 

mine ; 
Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me. 
My mother, *tis her wont from night to night 
To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 
She says the Princess should have been the 

Head, 
Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms; 
And so it was agreed when first they came ; 



48 THE PRINCESS. 

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 
And she the left, or not, or seldom used ; 
Hers more than half the students, all the love. 
And so last night she fell to canvass you : 
Her countrywomen! she did not envy her. 
'Who ever saw such wild barbarians? 
Girls? — more like men!' and at these words 

the snake, 
My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast; 
And oh. Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek 
Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 
To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd: 
'O marvelously modest maiden, you! 
Men ! girls, like men ! why, if they had been 

men 
You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 
For wholesale comment.' Pardon, I am 

shamed 
That I must needs repeat for my excuse 
What looks so little graceful: *men' (for still 
My mother went revolving on the word) 
*And so they are, — very like men indeed — 
And with that woman closeted for hours!' 
Then came these dreadful words out one by 

one, 
*Why — these — are — men;' I shudder'd: *and 

you know it. ' 
*0 ask me nothing,' I said: *And she knows 

too. 
And she conceals it. ' So my mother clutch'd 
The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 
And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess: Lady Psyche will be crush'd; 
But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly: 



THE PRINCESS. 49 

But heal me with your pardon ere you go." 

**What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?** 
Said Cyril: *' Pale one, blush again: than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in 

Heaven," 
He added, **lest some classic Angel speak 
In scorn of us, *They mounted, Ganymedes, 
To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn.' 
But I will melt this marble into wax 
To yield us farther furlough:" and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
He scarce would prosper. **Tell us," Florian 

ask*d, 
*'How grew this feud betwixt the right and 

left." 
'*0 long ago," she said, ** betwixt these two 
Division smoulders hidden ; 'tis my mother, 
Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
Pent in a crevice: much I bear with her: 
I never knew my father, but she says 
(God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 
And still she rail'd against the state of things. 
She had the care of Lady Ida's youth. 
And from the Queen's decease she brought her 

up. 
But when your sister came she won the heart 
Of Ida: they were still together, grew 
(For so they said themselves) inosculated; 
Consonant chords that shiver to one note ; 
One mind in all things : yet my mother still 
Affirmed j^our Psyche thieved her theories. 
And angled with them for her pupil's love: 



50 THE PRINCESS. 

She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what : 
But I must go: I dare not tarry," and light, 
As jflies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 

Then murmur'd Florian gazing after her, 
**An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
If I could love, why this were she: how 

pretty 
Her blushing was, and how she blush 'd again, 
As if to close with Cyrirs random wish: 
Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring 

pride. 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow/' 

*'The crane," I said, ''may chatter of the 

crane. 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 
My princess, O my princess ! true she errs, 
But in her own grand way: being herself 
Three times more noble than three score of 

men. 
She sees herself in every woman else, 
And so she wears her error like a crown 
To blind the truth and me: for her, and her, 
Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 
The nectar; but — ah she — whene'er she moves 
The Samian Here rises and she speaks. 
A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun." 

So saying from the court we paced, and 
gain'd 
The terrace ranged along the Northern front, 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 



THE PRINCESS. 51 

Above the empurpled champaign, drank the 

gale 
That blown about the foliage underneath, 
And sated with the innumerable rose, 
Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning **0 hard task," he cried; 
*'No fighting shadows here! I forced a way 
Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. 
Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 
A league of street in summer solstice down. 
Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
I knock'd, and, bidden, entered; found her 

there 
At point to move, and settled in her eyes 
The green malignant light of coming storm. 
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd. 
As man's could be; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
Concealment: she demanded who we were, 
And why we came? I fabled nothing fair. 
But, your example, pilot, told her all. 
Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. 
She answer'd sharply that I talked astray. 
I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 
And our three lives. True — we had limed 

ourselves 
With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 
But such extremes, I told her, well might 

harm 
The woman's cause. *Not more than now,' 

she said, 
*So puddled as it is with favoritism.' 
I tried the mother's heart. Shame might be- 
fall 



62 THE PRINCESS. 

Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew: 
Her answer was * Leave me to deal with that/ 
I spoke of war to come and many deaths, 
And she replied, her duty was to speak. 
And duty duty, clear of consequences. 
I grew discouraged. Sir ; but since I knew 
No rock so hard but that a little wave 
May beat admission in a thousand years, 
I recommenced; 'Decide not ere you pause. 
I find you here but in the second place, 
Some say the third — the authentic foundress 

you. 
I offer boldly : we will seat you highest : 
Wink at our advent : help my prince to gain 
His rightful bride, and here I promise you 
Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 
The head and heart of all our fair she-world. 
And your great name flow on with broadening 

time 
For ever. ' Well, she balanced this a little, 
And told me she would answer us to-day, 
Meantime be mute: thus much, nor more I 

gained." 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
**That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip of certain strata to the North. 
Would we go with her? we should find the land 
Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
Out yonder:'* then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale. 

Agreed to this, the day fled on thro' all 
Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 



THE PRINCESS. 53 

Then summoned to the porch we went. She 

stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head, 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he roll'd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near; 
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure 

came 
Upon me, the weird vision of our house: 
The Princess Idaseem'd a hollow show, 
Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy. 
Her college and her maidens, empty masks, 
And I myself the shadow of a dream, 
For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and with 

awe; 
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 
Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and 

shook 
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
Went forth in long retinue following up 
The river as it narrow'd to the hills. 

I rode beside her and to me she said: 
**0 friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
Unwillingly we spake.*' **No — not to her," 
I answer'd, **but to one of whom we spake 
Your Highness might have seem'd the thing 

you say. * * 
*' Again?** she cried, *'are you ambassadresses 
From him to me? we give you, being strange, 
A license: speak, and let the topic die.** 



54 THE PRINCESS. 

I stammer'd that I knew him — could have 

wish'd — 
**Our king expects — was there no precontract? 
There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigured, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but long*d 
To follow : surely, if your Highness keep 
Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to 

death, 
Or baser courses, children of despair. ' ' 

**Poor boy," she said, **can he not read — no 

books? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games? nor deals in 

that 
Which men delight in, martial exercise? 
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than a girl ; 
As girls were once, as we ourself have been : 
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with 

them : 
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it. 
Being other — since we learnt our meaning 

here, 
To lift the woman's falVn divinity 
Upon an even pedestal with man. * ' 

She paused, and added with a haughtier 
smile 
**And as to precontrasts, we move, my friend. 
At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, 
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summoned out 
She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms. * * 



THE PRINCESS. 55 

« 

**Alasyour Highness breathes full East/* I 

said, 
'*0n that which leans to you. I know the 

Prince, 
I prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray pre-eminence of man ! 
You grant me license; might I use it? think; 
Ere half be done perchance your life may fail ; 
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 
May only make that footprint upon sand 
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you, 
With only Fame for spouse and your great 

deeds 
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss, 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
Love, children, happiness?" 

And she exclaim 'd, 
'* Peace, you young savage of the Northern 

wild! 
What! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice? 
You are bold indeed : we are not talk'd to thus : 
Yet will we say for children, would they grew 
Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them 

well: 
But children die; and let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
Children — that men may pluck them from our 

hearts, 
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 



66 THE PRINCESS. 

O — children— there is nothing upon earth 
More miserable than she that has a son 
And sees him err : nor would we work for fame ; 
Tho* she perhaps might reap the applause of 

Great 
Who learns the one pousto whence after-hands 
May move the world, tho' she herself effect 
But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 
For fear our solid aim be dissipated 
By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had 

been. 
In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 
Of giants living, each a thousand years, 
That we might see our own work out, and 

watch 
The sandy footprint harden into stone." 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
If that strange Poet-princess with her grand 
Imaginations might at all be won. 
And she broke out interpreting my thoughts : 

**No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; 
We are used to that: for women, up till this 
Cramp 'd under worse than South-sea-isle 

taboo. 
Dwarfs of the gynaeceum, fail so far 
In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 
Oh, if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches, than by single act 
Of immolation, any phase of death. 
We were as prompt to spring against the pikes. 



THE PRINCESS. 67 

Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it, 
To compass our dear sister's liberties." 

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear; 
And up we came to where the river sloped 
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black 

blocks 
A breath of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 
And danced the color, and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and 

roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
**As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
That will be.*' *'Dare we dream of that,*' I 

ask'd, 
** Which wrought us, as the workman and his 

work. 
That practice betters?*' **How," she cried, 

*'you love 
The metaphysics! read and earn our prize, 
A golden brooch : beneath an emerald plane 
Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 
Of hemlock; our device; wrought to the life; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on her: 
For there are schools for all.'* **And yet," 1 

said 
**Methinks I have not found among them all 
One anatomic." **Nay, we thought of that," 
She answer 'd, **but it pleased us not: in truth 
We shudder but ,to dream our maids should ape 
Those monstous males that carve the living 

hound. 
And cram him with the fragments of the grave, 
O in the dark dissolving human heart. 



58 THE PRINCESS. 

And holy secrets of this microcosm, 
Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 
Encarnalize their spirits: yet we know 
Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter 

hangs : 
Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 
Nor willing men should come among us, learnt 
For many weary moons before we came. 
This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 
Would tend upon you. To your question now 
Which touches on the workman and his work 
Let there be light and there was light: 'tis so; 
For was, and is, and will be, are but is 
And all creation is one act at once. 
The birth of light: but we that are not all. 
As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 
And live, perforce, from thought to thought, 

and make 
One act a phantom of succession : thus 
Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, 

Time; 
But in the shadow will we work, and mould 
The woman to the fuller day. ' * 

She spake 
With kindled eyes: we rode a league beyond, 
And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came 
On flowery levels underneath the crag. 
Full of all beauty. '*0 how sweet/' I said 
(For I was half-oblivious of my mask) 
**To linger here with one that loved us." 

'*Yea," 
She answer'd, **or with fair philosophies 
That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 
Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns, 



THE PRINCESS. 59 

Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 
The soft white vapor streak the crowned towers 
Built to the Sun:'* then, turning to her maids, 
** Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward; 
Lay out the viands. " At the word, they raised 
A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 
With fair Corinna's triumph; here she stood. 
Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek. 
The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquer'd 

there 
The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns. 
And all the men mourn'd at his side; but we 
Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 
With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 
With mine affianced. Many a little hand 
Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks. 
Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 
In the dark crag: and then we turn'd, we 

wound 
About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, 
Hammering and clinking, chattering stony 

names 
Of shade and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff. 
Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun 
Grew broader toward his death and fell, and 

all 
The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 



The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story: 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear. 

And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying, 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river: 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul 
And grow for ever and for ever. 
Blow, bup-le, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 



61 



THE PRINCESS. 63 



PART IV. 

** There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound, * ' 
Said Ida; **let us down and rest;'* and we 
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices. 
By every coppice-feather 'd chasm and cleft, 
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where 

below 
No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on 

me, 
Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand, 
And blissful palpitation in the blood, 
Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in, 
There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 
Our elbows : on a tripod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. 

Then she, '*Let some one sing to us: light- 
lier move 
The minutes fledged with music:'* and a maid. 
Of those beside her, smote her harp and sang. 



64 THE PRINCESS. 

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

** Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail. 
That brings our friends up from the underworld. 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

"Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

"Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign 'd 
On lips that are for others : deep as love, 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 

She ended with such passion that the tear, 
She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl 
Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain 
Answer'd the Princess, **If indeed there haunt 
About the mouldered lodges of the Past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men. 
Well needs it we should cram our ears with 

wool 
And so pace by: but thine are fancies hatch 'd 
In silken-folded idleness; nor is it 
Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, 
But trim our sails, aud let old bygones be, 
While down the streams that float us each and 

all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, 



THE PRINCESS. 65 

Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
Becomes a cloud : for all things serve their time 
Toward that great year of equal mights and 

rights, 
Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
Found golden: let the past be past; let be 
Their cancell'd Babels: tho'the rough kex break 
The starr'd mosaic, and the beard-blown goat 
Hang on the shaft, and the wild figtree split 
Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 
A trumpet in the distance pealing news 
Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns 
Above the unrisen morrow:" then to me; 
''Know you no song of your own land, " she 

said, 
''Not such as moans about the retrospect, 
But deals with the other distance and the hues 
Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine. " 

Then I remember'd one myself had made, 
What time I watch 'd the swallow winging south 
From mine own land, part made long since, 

and part 
Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 

"O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 

"O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 

"O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, 
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 
5 Princess 



66 THE PRINCESS. 

*'0 were I thou that she might take me in, 
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 

**Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love. 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? 

**0 tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: 
Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 

"O tell her, brief is life, but love is long, 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 

*'0 Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
And tell her. tell her, that I follow thee." 

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 
Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, 
Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien 

lips, 
And knew not what they meant; for still my 

voice 
Rang false: but smiling, ''Not for thee," she 

said, 
"O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, 

maid. 
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this 
A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend. 
We hold them slight: they mind us of the time 
When we made bricks in Eg3^pt. Knaves are 

men. 
That lute and flute fantastic tenderness. 



THE PRINCESS. 67 

And dress the victim to the offering up, 

And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 

And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 

Poor soul! I had a maid of honor once; 

She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 

A rogue of canzonets and serenades. 

I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 

So they blaspheme the muse ! But great is song 

Used to great ends: ourself have often tried 

Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 

The passion of the prophetess; for song 

Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 

Of spirit than to junketing and love. 

Love is it? Would this same mock-love and 

this 
Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, 
Till all men grew to rate us at our worth. 
Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 
To be dandled, no, but living wills, and 

sphered, 
Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough ! 
But now to leave play with profit, you. 
Know you no song, the true growth of your 

soil. 
That gives the manners of your country- 

women?'* 

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head 

with eyes 
Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a 

song, 
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth*d glass had 

wrought. 



68 THE PRINCESS. 

Or mastered by the sense of sport, began 
To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 
I frowning; Psyche flushed and wann'd and 

shook ; 
The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows. 
*' Forbear,*' the Princess cried; ** Forbear, 

Sir,- I; 
And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and 

love, 
I smote him on the breast ; he started up ; 
There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd; 
Melissa clamor'd, *'Flee the death;" '*To 

horse," 
Said Ida; *' home! to horse!" and fled, as flies 
A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk. 
When some one batters at the dovecote-doors. 
Disorderly the women. Alone I stood 
With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart, 
In the pavilion : there like parting hopes 
I heard them passing from me : hoof by hoof. 
And every hoof a knell to my desires, 
Clang'd on the bridge; and then another 

shriek, 
*'The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the 

Head!" 
For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and 

roll'd 
In the river. Out I sprang from glow to 

gloom : 
There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd 

branch 
Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave. 



THE PRINCESS. 69 

No more ; but woman-vested as I was 
Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her ; 

then 
Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 
The weight of all the hopes of half the world, 
Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 
Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd 
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave 
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and 

caught, 
And grasping down the bows I gain'd the shore. 

There stood her maidens glimmeringly 

group 'd 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward 

drew 
My burthen from mine arms; they cried, **she 

lives;*' 
They bore her back into the tent: but I, 
So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, 
Nor found my friend's; but push'd alone on 

foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft 
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length 
The garden portals. Two great statues. Art 
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves 
Of open-work in which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the 

gates. 



70 THE PRINCESS. 

A little space was left between the horns, 
Thro* which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, 
Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks, 
And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue 

to hue, 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd 
Thro* a great arc his seven slow suns. 

A step 
O lightest echo, then a loftier form 
Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
Disturb'd me with the doubt, * 'if this were she, ' ' 
But it was Florian. *■ Hist O Hist," he said, 
*'They seek us: out so late is out of rules. 
Moreover, 'seize the strangers ' is the cry. 
How came you here?** I told him: "I,** said 

he, 
'*Last of the train, a moral leper, I, 
To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, re- 
turn *d. 
Arriving all confused among the rest 
With hooded brows I crept into the hall. 
And, couch*d behind a Judith, underneath 
The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw. 
Girl after girl was caird to trial: each 
Disclaim*d all knowledge of us: last of all, 
Melissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
She, question*d if she knew us men, at first 
Was silent ; closer prest, denied it not : 
And then, demanded if her mother knew. 
Or Psyche, she affirm*d not, or denied: 
From whence the Royal mind, familiar with 

her. 
Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent 



THE PRINCESS. 71 

For Psyche, but she was not there; she caird 
For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; 
She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 
And I slipt out: but whither will you now? 
And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled: 
What, if together? that were not so well. 
Would rather we had never come ! I dread 
His wildness, and the chances of the dark.** 

**And yet,** I said, **you wrong him more 

than I 
That struck him ; this is proper to the clown, 
Tho* smock'd, or furr*d and purpled, still the 

clown. 
To harm the thing that trusts him, and to 

shame 
That which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe*er 
He deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 
Might have been worse and sinn*d in grosser 

lips 
Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 
These flashes on the surface are not he, 
He has a solid base of temperament : 
But as the waterlily starts and slides 
Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
Tho' anchor*d to the bottom, such is he.**. 

Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk 
near 
Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, ''Names:'* 
He, standing , still, was clutch*d; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
And double in and out the boles, and race 
By all the fountains; fleet I was of foot; 



72 THE PRINCESS. 

Before me showered the rose in flakes; behind 

I heard the puff'd pursuer; at mine ear 

Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 

And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 

At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine, 

That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, 

And falling on my face was-caught and known. 

They haled us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the hall: above her droop'd a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head. 
Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black 

hair 
Damp from the river; and close behind her 

stood 
Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than 

men. 
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, 

and rain, 
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock ; 
Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with 

mews. 

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing- clove 
An advent to the throne : and there beside, 
Half naked as if caught at once from bed 
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
The lily-shining child; and on the left, 
Bow*d on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
Her round white shoulder shaken with her 
sobs, 



THE PRINCESS. 73 

Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 

'*It was not thus, O Princess, in old days: 
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: 
I led you then to all the Castalies ; 
I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 
I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 
Your second mother: those were gracious 

times. 
Then came your new friend: you began to 

change — 
I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 
Till taken with her seeming openness 
You turn'd your warmer currents all to her, 
To me you froze : this was my meed for all. 
Yet I bore up in part from ancient love. 
And partly that I hoped to win you back, 
And partly conscious of my own deserts, 
And partly that you were my civil head, 
And chiefly you were born for something great. 
In which I might your fellow-worker be, 
When time should serve; and thus a noble 

scheme 
Grew up from seed we two long since had 

sown; 
In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd. 
Up in one night and due to sudden sun: 
We took this palace ; but even from the first 
You stood in your own light and darken'd 

mine. 
What student came but that you planed her 

path 
To Lady Psyche, younger not so wise, 

6 Princess 



74 THE PRINCESS. 

A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 
I your old friend and tried, she new in all? 
But still her lists were swell'd and mine were 

lean; 
Yet I bore up in hope she would be known : 
Then came these wolves : they knew her : they 

endured. 
Long-closeted with her the yestermorn. 
To tell her what they were, and she to hear : 
And me none told : not less to an eye like mine 
A lidless watcher of the public weal. 
Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot 
Was to you: but I thought again: I fear'd 
To meet a cold 'We thank you, we shall hear 

of it 
From Lady Psyche:' you had gone to her, 
She told, perforce; and winning easy grace. 
No doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among us 
In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 
Less grain than touchwood, while my honest 

heat 
Were all miscounted as malignant haste 
To push my rival out of place and power. 
But public use required she should be known; 
And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 
I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 
I spoke not then at first, but watch 'd them 

well, 
Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 
And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for 

it) 
I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 
Ridd'n to the hills, she likewise: now, I 

thought. 



THE PRINCESS. 75 

That surely she will speak ; if not, then I : 
Did she? These monsters blazoned what they 

were, 
According to the coarseness of their kind, 
For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) 
And full of cowardice and guilty shame, 
I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies; 
And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 
I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 
I that have wasted here health, wealth, and 

time, 
And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast: 
Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan. 
Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 
For every gust of chance, and men will say 
We did not know the real light, but chased 
The wisp that flickers where no foot can 

tread." 

She ceased: the Princess answer'd coldly, 
''Good: 
Your oath is broken: we dismss you: go. 
For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child) 
Our mind is changed : we take it to ourself . ' * 

Thereat the Lady stretched a vulture throat. 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
"The plan was mine. I built the nest,'* she 

said, 
**To hatch the cuckoo. Rise!" and stoop'd to 

updrag 
Melissa: she, half on her mother propt. 
Half drooping from her, turn'd her face, and 

cast 



76 THE PRINCESS. 

A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 
Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 
A Niobean daughter, one arm out. 
Appealing to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 
We gazed upon her came a little stir 
About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 
Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 
A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 
Stared in her eyes, and chalk*d her face, and 

winged 
Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 
Delivering seal'd dispatches which the Head 
Took half amazed, and in her lion's mood 
Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 
Regarding, while she read, till over brow 
And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful 

bloom 
As of some fire against a stormy cloud. 
When the wild peasant rights himself, the 

rick 
Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; 
For anger most it seem'd, while now her 

breast, 
Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 
Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 
In the dead hush the papers that she held 
Rustle : at once the lost lamb at her feet 
Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam; 
The plaintive cry jarr'don her ire; shecrush'd 
The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 
As if to speak, but, utterance failing her. 
She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say 
**Read, '' and I read — two letters — one her 

sire's. 



THE PRINCESS. 77 

**Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince 

your way 
We knew not your ungracious laws, which 

learnt, 
We, conscious of what temper you are built. 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who has this night. 
You lying close upon his territory, 
Slipt round and in the dark invested you. 
And here he keeps me hostage for his son. 

The second was my father's running thus: 
**You have our son: touch not a hair of his 

head: 
Render him up unscathed: give him your 

hand: 
Cleave to your contract: tho' indeed we hear 
You hold the woman is the better man ; 
, A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women kick against their 

Lords 
Thro' all the world, and which mi^ht well 

deserve 
That we this night should pluck your palace. 

down ; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole. ' 

So far I read;*^ 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

**0 not to pry and peer on your reserve. 
But led by golden wishes, and a hope 
The child of regal compact, did I break 
Your precinct, not a scorner of your sex 



78 THE PRINCESS. 

But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be ; hear me, for I bear, 
Tho* man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, 
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life 
Less mine than yours : my nurse would tell 

me of you ; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon. 
Vague brightness : when a boy, you stoop'd to 

me 
From all high places, lived in all fair lights, 
Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 
And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 
With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods; 
The leader wildswan in among the stars 
Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glow- 
worm light 
The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 
Because I would have reach'd you, had you 

been 
Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 
Persephone in Hades, now at length, 
Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 
A man I came to see you : but, indeed, 
Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 
O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 
On you, their center : let me say but this, 
That many a famous man and woman, town 
And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 
The dwarfs of presage: tho* when known, 

there grew 
Another kind of beauty in detail 
Made them worth knowing; but in you I found 
My boyish dreams involved and dazzled down 
And mastered, while that after-beauty makes 



THE PRINCESS. 79 

Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, 
Within me, that except you slay me here, 
According to your bitter statute-book, 
I cannot cease to follow you, as they say 
The seal does music ; who desire you more 
Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, 
With many thousand matters left to do, 
The breath of life; O more than poor men 

wealth, 
Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine 

—but half 
Without you; with you, whole; and of those 

halves 
You worthiest; and however you block and bar 
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he die : 
Yet that I came not all unauthorized 
Behold your father's letter. '* 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and 

dash'd 
Unopened at her feet: a tide of fierce 
Invective seem*d to wait behind her lips. 
As waits a river level with the dam 
Ready to burst and flood the world with foam : 
And so she would have spoken, but there rose 
A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
Gather 'd together: from the illumined hall 
Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press 
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes. 
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike 

eyes. 



80 THE PRINCESS. 

And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, 

some pale. 
All open-mouth 'd, all gazing to the light, 
Some crying there was an army in the land. 
And some that men were in the very walls, 
And some they cared not ; till a clamor grew 
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built, 
And worse-confounded : high above them stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 

Not peace she look'd, the Head; but rising 

up 
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 
To the open window moved, remaining there 
Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves 
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. She stretched her arms 

and caird 
Across the tumult and the tumult fell. 

*'What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your 

Head? 

On me, me, me, the storm first breaks; I dare 

All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear? 

Peace ! there are those to avenge us and they 

come: 
If not, — myself were like enough, O girls. 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, 
Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause. 
Die; yet I blame you not so much for fear; 
Six thousand years of fear have made you that 
From which I would redeem you : but for those 




**She wept her eyes blind for such a one/' — Page 67, 

The Princess, 



THE PRINCESS. 81 

That stir this hubbub — you and you — I know 
Your faces there in the crowd — to-morrow 

morn 
We hold a great convention : then shall they 
That love their voices more than duty, learn 
With whom they deal, dismissed in shame to 

live 
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, 
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, 
Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown. 
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of 

Time, 
Whose brains are in their hands and in their 

heels, 
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum^ 
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 
For ever slaves at home and fools abroad. ' * 

She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the 

crowd 
Muttering, dissolved; then with a smile, that 

looked 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff. 
When all the glens are drown 'd in azure gloom 
Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said : 

''You have done well and like a gentleman. 
And like a prince: you have our thanks for 

all: 
And you look well too in your woman's dress: 
Well have you done and like a gentleman. 
You saved our life : we owe you bitter thanks : 
Better have died and spilt our bones in the 

flood — 



82 THE PRINCESS. 

Then men had said — but now — What hinders 

me 
To take such bloody vengeance on you both? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good 

hive, 
You would-be quenchers of the light to be, 
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — 

would I had his sceptre for one hour! 

You that have dared to break our bound, and 

guird 
Our servants, wrong*d and lied and thwarted 

us — 

1 wed with thee! I bound by precontract 
Your bride, your bondslave! not tho* all the 

gold 
That veins the world were pack'd to make your 

crown. 
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us; 
I trample on your offers and on you : 
Begone: we will not look upon you more. 
Here, push them out at gates. '* 

In wrath she spake. 
Than those eight mighty daughters of the 

plough 
Bent their broad faces toward us and address*d 
Their motion: twice I sought to plead my 

cause, 
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands. 
The weight of destiny : so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the 

court, 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at 

gates. 



THE PRINCESS. 83 

We crossed the street and gain'd a petty 
mound, 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I listened, 

came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt : 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts; 
The Princess with her monstrous woman- 
guard, 
The jest and earnest working side by side, 
The cataract and the tumult and the kings 
Were shadows; and the long fantastic night 
With all its doings had and had not been, 
And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowing I was one 
To whom the touch of all mischance but came 
As night to him that sitting on a hill 
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 
Set into sunrise ; then we moved away. 



84 THE PRINCESS. 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums. 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands: 
A moment, while the trumpets blow. 

He sees his brood about thy knee ; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe. 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

So Lilia sang: we thought her half possessed, 
She struck such warbling fury thro' the words; 
And, after, feigning pique at what she caird 
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 
Like one that wishes at a dance to change 
The music — clapt her hands and cried for war. 
Or some grand fight to kill and make an end: 
And he that next inherited the tale 
Half turning to the broken statue, said, 
**Sir Ralph has got your colors: if I prove 
Your knight, and fight your battle, what for 

me?" 
It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 
Lay by her like a model of her hand. 
She took it and she flung it. ** Fight,** she 

said, 
**And make us all we would be, great and 

good.*' 
He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 
A cap of Tyrol borrow *d from the hall. 
Arranged the favor, and assumed the Prince. 



THE PRINCESS. 85 



PART V. 

Now, scarce three paces measured from the 

mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary voice, 
And ''Stand, who goes?" ''Two from the pal- 

ace,'* I. 
"^The second two: they wait,'' he said, "pass 

on; 
His Highness wakes:'' and one, that clash'd in 

arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
Whispers of war. 

Entering the sudden light 
Dazed me half-blind: I stood and seem'd to 

hear. 
As in a popular grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies, 
Each hissing in his neighbor's ear; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death. 
Unmeasured mirth; while now the two oil 

kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down, 
The fresh young captains flash'd their glitter- 
ing teeth, 



86 THE PRIxNCESS. 

The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and 
blew, 

And slain with laughter roU'd the gilded- 
Squire. 

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with. 

tears, 
Panted from weary sides, **King, you are free! 
We did but keep you surety for our son, 
If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thou, 
That tends her bristled grunters in the 

sludge;*' 
For I was drench 'd with ooze, and torn with 

briers 
More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath. 
And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel. 
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 
A whisper'd jest to some one near him, *'Look, 
He has been among his shadows. " "Satan 

take 
The old women and their shadows! (thus the 

King 
Roar*d) make yourself a man to fight with 

men. 
Go: Cyril told us all." 

As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye. 
Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what was left of faded woman-slough 
To sheathing splendors and the golden scale 
Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
And hit the Northern hills. Here Cyril met us. 
A little shy at first, but by and by 



THE PRINXESS. 87 

We twain, with mutual pardon ask*d and given 
For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 
Followed his tale. Amazed he fled away 
Thro* the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psyche weeping: *'then we fell 
Into your father's hand, and there she lies, 
But will not speak, nor stir.*' 

He showed a tent 
A stone-shot off; we entered in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
Pitiful sight, wrapped in a soldier's clpak. 
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head 

to foot. 
And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal. 
All her fair length upon the ground she lay: 
And at her head a follower of the camp, 
A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood, 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 

Then Florian knelt, and *'Come,** he whis- 

per'd to her, 
"Lift up your head, sweet sister; lie not thus. 
What have you done but right? you could not 

slay 
Me, nor your prince ; look up ; be comforted ; 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought. 
When fall'n in darker ways." And likewise I: 
'*Be comforted; have I not lost her too. 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me?" She heard, she 

moved, 
She moan'd, a folded voice; and up she sat, 
And raised the cloak from brows as pale and 
smooth 



88 THE PRINCESS. 

As those that mourn half shrouded over death 
In deathless marble. **Her," she said, *'my 

friend — 
Parted from her — betray 'd her cause and 

mine — 
Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your 

faith? 
O base and bad! what comfort? none for me!" 
To whom remorseful Cyril, **Yet I pray 
Take comfort: live, dear lady, for your child!" 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried. 
*' Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, 
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more\ 
For now will cruel Ida keep her back: 
And either she will die from want of care. 
Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say 
The child is hers — for every little fault. 
The child is hers; and they will beat my girl 
Remembering her mother: O my flower! 
Or they will take her, they will make her hard. 
And she will pass me by in after-life 
With some cold reverence worse than were she 

dead. 
Ill mother that I was to leave her there. 
To lag behind, sacred by the cry they made, 
The horror of the shame among them all : 
But I will go and sit beside the doors, 
And make a wild petition night and day. 
Until they hate to hear me like a wind 
Wailing for ever, till they open to me. 
And lay my little blossom at my feet. 
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child : 
And I will take her up and go my way, 
And satisfy my soul with kissing her: 



THE PRINCESS. 89 

Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me 
Who gave me back my child?" **Be com- 
forted/' 
Said Cyril, **you shall have it:** but again 
She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and 

so 
Like tender things that being caught feign 

death, 
Spoke not, nor stirr*d. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro* all the camp and inward raced the scouts 
With rumor of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 
Found the gray kings at parle: and *'Look 

you,'* cried 
My father, **that our compact be fulfiird: 
You have spoilt this child; she laughs at you 

and man : 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him: 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire ; 
She yields, or war.** 

Then Gama turn*d to me: 
*'We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl : and yet they say that 

still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at 

large : 
How say you, war or not?** 

''Not war, if possible, 
O king,** I said, **lest from the abuse of war, 
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. 
The smouldering homestead, and the house- 
hold flower 
Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 



90 THE PRINCESS. 

A smoke go tip thro' which I loom to her 
Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn 
At him that mars her plan, but then would 

hate 
(And every voice she talked with ratify it, 
And every face she look'd on justify it) 
The general foe. More soluble is this knot, 
By gentleness than war. I want her love. 
"What were I nigher this altho' we dashed 
Your cities into shards with catapults, 
She would not love; — or brought her chain *d, 

a slave, 
The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord, 
Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 
The book of scorn, till all my fitting chance 
Were caught within the record of her wrongs. 
And crush' d to death: and rather. Sire, than 

this 
I would the old God of war himself were dead. 
Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 
Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, 
Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd in ice. 
Not to be molten out. *' 

And roughly spake 
My father, '*Tut, you know them not, the 

girls. 
Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think 
That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir! 
Man is the hunter; woman is his game: 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase. 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 
Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for 

shame ! 



THE PRINCESS. 91 

Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
As he that does the thing they dare not do, 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, 

comes 
With the air of the trumpet round him, and 

leaps in 
Among the women, snares them by the score 
Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, tho' dash'd with 

death 
He reddens what he kisses: thus I won 
Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 
Worth winning, but this firebrand — gentleness 
To such as her ! if Cyril spake her true. 
To catch a dragon in a cherry net. 
To trip a tigress with a gossamer, 
Were wisdom to it. ' ' 

**Yea, but Sire,** I cried, 
**Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? 

No: 
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yesternight, and storming in extremes, 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
Gagelike to man, and had not shunn*d the 

death, 
No, not the soldier*s: yet I hold her, king. 
True woman: but you clash them all in one, 
That have as r_iany differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that, 
And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty. 
Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need 



92 THE PRINCESS. 

More breadth of culture: is not Ida right? 

They worth it? truer to the law within? 

Severer in the logic of a life? 

Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 

Of earth and heaven? and she of whom you 

speak, 
My mother, looks as whole as some serene 
Creation minted in the golden moods 
Of sovereign artists ; not a thought, a touch, 
But pure as lines of green that streak the 

white 
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say, 
Not like the piebald miscellany, man. 
Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire. 
But whole and one : and take them all-in-all, 
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind. 
As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 
Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 
As dues of Nature. To our point: not war: 
Lest I lose all. ' ' 

'*Nay, nay, you spake but sense,*' 
Said Gama. ''We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth; we did not rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows. 
You talk almost like Ida: she can talk; 
And there is something in it as you say: 
But you talk kindlier: we esteem you for it. — 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
I would he had our daughter: for the rest, 
Our own detention, why, the causes weigh'd, 
Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
We pardon it; and for your ingress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land. 



THE PRINCESS. 93 

You did but come as goblins in the night, 
Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head, 
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milking 

maid, 
Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream: 
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 
He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 
And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice 
As ours with Ida: something may be done — 
I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. 
You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 
Follow us: who knows? we four may build 

some plan 
Foursquare to opposition. '* 

Here he reach 'd 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who 

growl'd 
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard. 
Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 

Then rode we with the old king across the 

lawns 
Beneath huge trees', a thousand rings of Spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray 
Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke 
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 
In the old king^s ears, who promised help, and 

oozed 
All o'er with hony*d answer as we rode 
And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
Gathered by night and peace, with each light 

air 
On ourmaird heads: but other thoughts than 

Peace 



94 THE PRINCESS. 

Burnt in ns, when we saw the embattled 

squares, 
And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the 

flowers 
With clamor : for among them rose a cry- 
As if to greet the king; they made a halt; 
The horses yeird ; they clash 'd their arms; the 

drum 
Beat; merrily-blowing shrill'd the martial fife; 
And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
The banner : anon to meet us lightly pranced 
Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 
Such thews of men: the midmost and the 

highest 
Was Arac : all about his motion clung 
The shadow of his sister, as the beam 
Of the East, that play 'd upon them, made them 

glance 
Like those three stars of the airy Giant's 

zone, 
That glitter burnished by the frosty dark; 
And as the fiery Sirius alters hue. 
And bickers into red and emerald, shone 
Their morions, wash'd with morning, as they 

came. 
And I that prated peace, when first I heard 
War-music, felt the blind wild beast of force, 
Whose home is in the sinews of man, 
Stir in me as to strike : then took the king 
His three broad sons; with now a wandering 

hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all : 
A common light of smiles at our disguise 



"^-HE PRINCESS. 95 

Broke from their lipar, and, ere the windy jest 
Had labor'd down within his ample lungs, 
The genial giant, Arac, roird himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 

'*Our land invaded, 'sdeath! and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war : 
And, 'sdeath! myself, what care I, war or no? 
But then this question of your troth remains : 
And there's a downright honest meaning in 

her; 
She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 
She ask'd but space and fair play for her 

scheme ; 
She prest and prest it on me — I myself, 
What know I of these things? but, life and 

soul! 
I thought her half right talking of her wrongs; 
I say she flies too high, 'sdeath! what of that? 
I take her for the flower of womankind, 
And so I often told her, right or wrong, 
And, Prince, she can he sweet to those she 

loves. 
And, right or wrong, I care not : this is all, 
I stand upon her side: she made me swear it — 
'Sdeath — and with solemn rites by candle- 
light- 
Swear by St. something — I forget her name^ — 
Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men; 
She was a princess too; and so I swore. 
Come, this is all; she will not: waive your 

claim : 
If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 
Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will." 



96 THE PRINCESS. 

I lagged in answer loth to render up 
My precontract, and loth by brainless war 
To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside 
And fingering at the hair above his lip, 
To prick us on to combat ''Like to like! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart. '* 
A taunt that clinched his purpose like a blow! 
For fiery-short was CyriVs counter-scoff, 
And sharp I answer'd, touched upon the point 
Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 
** Decide it here: why not? we are three to 
three/' 

Then spake the third, *'But three to three? 
no more? 

No more, and in our noble sister's cause? 
More, more, for honor: every captain waits 
Hungry for honor, angry for his king. 
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 
May breathe himself, and quick! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die.*' 

*'Yea," answer'd I, **for this wild wreath of 

air. 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds — this honor, if ye will. 
It needs must be for honor if at all: 
Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail, 
And if we win, we fail : she would not keep 
Her compact." '*'Sdeath! but we will send to 

her," 
Said Arac, ** worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue: let our missive thro'. 
And you shall have her answer by the word." 



THE PRINCESS. 97 

**Boys!** shriek 'd the old king, but vainlier 

than a hen 
To her false daughters in the pool ; for none 
Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say: 
Back rode we to my father's camp, and 

found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates. 
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 
Or by denial flush her babbling wells 
With her own people's life: three times he 

went: 
The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd : 
He batter'd at the doors; none came: the 

next. 
An awful voice within had warn'd him thence: 
The third, and those eight daughters of the 

plough 
Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his 

hair, 
And so belabored him on rib and cheek 
They made him wild : not less one glance he 

caught 
Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise 
Of arms ; and standing like a stately Pine 
Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 
When storm is on the heights, and right and 

left 
Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills 

roll 
The torrents, dash'd to the vale: and yet her 

will 
Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 

7 Princess 



98 THE PRINCESS. 

But when I told the king that I was pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clash 'd 
His iron palms together with a cry; 
Himself would tilt it out among the lads : 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, per- 
force 
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur: 
And many a bold knight started up in heat. 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. 

All on this side the palace ran the field 
Flat to the garden-wall : and likewise here, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
A column'd entry shone and marble stairs, 
And great bronze valves, emboss'd with 

Tomyris 
And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
But now fast barr'd: so here upon the flat 
All that long morn the lists were hammered 

up, 
And all that morn the heralds to and fro, 
With message and defiance, went and came ; 
Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand. 
But shaken here and there, and rolling words 
Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read. 

**0 brother, you have known the pangs we 

felt, 
What heats of indignation when we heard 
Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet; 
Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 
Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a 

scourge ; 



THE PRINCESS. 99 

Of living hearts that crack within the fire 
Where smoulder their dead despots; and of 

those, — 
Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling 
Their pretty maids in the running flood, and 

swoops 
The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 
Made for all noble motion : and I saw 
That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 
With smoother men: the old leaven leaven'd 

all: 
Millions of throats would brawl for civil rights, 
No woman named : therefore I set my face 
Against all men, and lived but for mine own. 
Far off from men I built a fold for them : 
I stored it full of rich memorial : 
I fenced it round with gallant institutes. 
And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey 
And prospered, till a rout of saucy boys 
Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our 

peace, 
Masked like our maids, blustering I know not 

what 
Of insolence and love, some pretext held 
Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 
Seal'd not the bond — the striplings! — for their 

sport ! — 
I tamed my leopards: shall I not tame these? 
Or you? or I? for since you think me touch'd 
In honor — what, I would not aught of false — 
Is not our cause pure? and whereas I know 
Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 
You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 
What end soever: fail you will not. Still 



100 . THE PRIxNCESS. 

Take not his life: he risked it for my own; 
His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er you do, 
Fight and fight well ; strike and strike home. 

O dear 
Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 
The sole men to be mingled with our cause, 
The sole men we shall prize in the after-time, 
Your very armor hallow 'd, and your statues 
Rear'd, sung to, when, this gad-fly brushed 

aside. 
We plant a solid foot into the Time, 
And mould a generation strong to move 
With claim on claim from right to right, till she 
Whose name is yoked with children's, knows 

herself ; 
And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 
And, ever following those two crowned twins, 
Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery 

grain 
Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 
Between the Northern and the Southern 

morn." 

Then came a postscript dash'd across the 

rest. 
'*See that there be no traitors in your camp: 
We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 
Since our arms fail'd — this Egypt-plague of 

men! 
Almost our maids were better at their homes, 
Than thus man-girdled here : indeed I think 
Our chiefest comfort is the little child 
Of one unworthy mother ; which she left : 
She shall not have it back : the child shall grow 



THE PRINCESS. 101 

To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 
I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
This morning: there the tender orphan hands 
Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from 

thence 
The wrath I nursed against the world: fare- 
well.** 

I ceased; he said, ** Stubborn, but she may 
sit 
Upon a king^s right hand in thunder-storms, 
And breed up warriors! See now, tho' your- 
self 
Bedazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense, the spindling 

king, 
This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance. 
When the man wants weight, the woman takes 

it up, 
And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt 
As are the roots of earth and base of all ; 
Man for the field and woman for thi hearth: 
Man for the sword and for the needle she: 
Man with the head and woman with the heart: 
Man to command and woman to obey ; 
All else confusion. Look you ! the gray mare 
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman 
Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell 
Mix with his hearth: but you — she's yet a 

colt — 
Take, break her: strongly groom'd and straitly 

curbed 
She might not rank with those detestable 



102 THE PRINCESS. 

That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl 
Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the 

street. 
They say she's comely; there's the fairer 

chance : 
I like her none the less for rating at her ! 
Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 
But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 
The bearing and the training of a child 
Is woman's wisdom." 

Thus the hard old king : 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon: 
I pored upon her letter which I held, 
And on the little clause **take not his life:" 
I mused on that wild morning in the woods. 
And on the ** Follow, follow, thou shalt win:" 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said. 
And how the strange betrothment was to end: 
Then I remembered that burnt sorcerer*s curse 
That one should fight with shadows and should 

fall; 
And like a flash the weird affection came : 
King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows; 
I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts, 
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts. 
To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 
And ere I woke it was the point of noon. 
The lists were ready. Empanoplied and 

plumed 
We entered in, and waited, fifty there 
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 
At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 



THE PRINCESS. 103 

Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 
The trumpet, and again : at which the storm 
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
And riders front to front, until they closed 
In conflict with the crash of shivering points, 
And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream, I 

dreamed 
Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 
And into fiery splinters leapt the lance. 
And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 
Part sat like rocks: part reeVd but kept their 

seats: 
Part roird on the earth and rose again and 

drew: 
Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. 

Down 
From these two bulks at Arac's side, and down 
From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 
The large blows rain*d, as here and every- 
where 
He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists. 
And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, 

and shield — 
Shocked, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 
With hammers ; till I thought, can this be he 
From Gama's dwarfish lions? if this be so, 
The mother makes us most — and in my dream 
I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 
Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes. 
And highest, among the statues, statuelike. 
Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, 
With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 
A single band of gold about her hair. 
Like a saint's glory up in heaven: but she 



104 THE PRINCESS. 

No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 
Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight, 
Yea, let her see me fall ! with that I drave 
Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, 
And Cyril one. Yea, let me make my dream 
All that I would. But that large-moulded 

man. 
His visage all agrin as at a wake. 
Made at me thro* the press, and, staggering 

back 
With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman 

came 
As comes a pillar of electric cloud. 
Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, 
And shadowing down the champaign till it 

strikes 
On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, 

and splits, 
And twists the grain with such a roar that 

Earth 
Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything 
Gave way before him : only Florian, he 
That loved me closer than his own right eye, 
Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down: 
And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 
With Psyche's color round his |helmet, tough. 
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms; 
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 
And threw him: last I spurred; I felt my 

veins 
Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to 

hand, 
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we 

hung. 



THE PRINCESS. 105 

Till I struck out and shouted; the blade 

glanced, 
I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 
Flowed from me- darkness closed me; and I 

fell. 



8 Princess 



Home they brought her warrior dead: 
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: 

All her maidens, watching, said, 
"She must weep or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
Caird him worthy to be loved, 

Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place. 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took the face-cloth from the face : 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
Set his child upon her knee — 

Like summer tempest came her tears- 
' 'Sweet my child, I live for thee." 



107 



THE PRINCESS. 109 



PART VI. 

My dream had never died or lived again. 
As in some 'mystic middle state I lay; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard: 
Tho\ if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so they said to me. 
That all things grow more tragic and more 

strange ; 
That when our side was vanquish'd and my 

cause 
For ever lost, there went up a great cry, 
The Prince is slain. My father heard and 

ran 
In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
And grovel* d on my body, and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
With Psyche's babe in arm: there on the roofs 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall' n: the seed, 
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side s 

A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. 



110 THE PRINCESS. 

'•Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came; 
The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard 
A noise of songs they would not understand: 
They mark' d it with the red cross to the fall, 
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves. 

"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came, 
The woodmen with their axes: lo the tree! 
But we will make it faggots for the hearth. 
And shape it plank and'beam for roof and floor, 
And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they struck; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
There dwelt an -iron nature in the grain : 
The glittering axe was broken in their arms. 
Their arms were shatter' d to the shoulder blade. 

"Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power: and roll'd 
With music in the growing breeze of Time, 
The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

**And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken: fear we not 
To break them more in their behoof, whose 

arms 
Championed our cause and won it with a day 
Blanch 'd in our annals, and perpetual feast, 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
To rain an April of ovation round 
Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but come, 
We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse man- 
kind. 



THE PRINCESS. Ill 

111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 
The brethren of our blood and cause, that 

there 
Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries 
Of female hands and hospitality.*' 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her 

arms, 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, 

and led 
A hundred maids in train across the Park. 
Some cowrd, and some bare-headed, on they 

came, 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them 

went 
The enamor'd air sighing, and on their curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering 

fell. 
And over them the tremulous isles of light 
Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche 
At distance followed: so they came: anon 
Thro* open fields into the lists they wound 
Timorously; and as the leader of the herd 
That holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, 
And followed up by a hundred airy does. 
Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 
The lovely, lordly creature floated on 
To where her wounded brethren lay; there 

stay'd; 
Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and 

prest 
Their hands, and caird them dear deliverers, 
And happy warriors, and immortal names, 
And said ** You shall not lie in the tents but 

here. 



112 THE PRINCESS. 

ft 
And nursed by those for whom you fought, and^ 

served 
With female hands and hospitality.*' 

Then, whether moved by this, or was it 

chance, 
She past my way. Up started froin my side 
The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, 
Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 
Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale, 
Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd ; and when she saw 
The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
Of his own son, shudder'd, a tv/itch of pain 
Tortured her mouth, and o*er her forehead past 
A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said: 
''He saved my life: my brother slew him for 

it/* 
No more : at which the king in bitter scorn 
Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, 
And held them up : she saw them, and a day 
Rose from the distance on her memory. 
When the good Queen, her mother, shore the 

tress 
With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche : 
And then once more she look'd at my pale 

face: 
Till understanding all the foolish work 
Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all. 
Her iron will was broken in her mind ; 
Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 
She bowed, she set the child on the earth ; she 

laid 
A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 



THE PRINCESS. 115 

**0 Sire,'* she said, **he lives: he is not dead: 
O let me have him with my brethren here 
In our own palace: we will tend on him 
Like one of these ; if so, by any means, 
To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make 
Our progress falter to the woman's goal." 

She said: but at the happy word **he lives" 
My father stoop'd, re-fathered o'er my wounds, 
So those two foes above my fallen life, 
With brow to brow like night and evening. 

mixt 
Their dark and gray, with Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
Half lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede^ 
Lay like a new-fall'n meteor on the grass, 
Uncared for, spied its mother and began 
A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamoring out, ''Mine — 

mine — not yours. 
It is not yours, but mine: give me the child" 
Ceased all on tremble: piteous was the cry: 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd. 
And turn'd each face her way: wan was her 

cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye. 
And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 
The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 
The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared 
Nor knew it, clamoring on, till Ida heard, 
Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 

8 



114 THE PRINCESS. 

Erect and silent, striking with her glance 
The mother, me, the child ; but he that lay 
Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 
Traird himself up on one knee : then he drew 
Her robe to meet his lips, and down she look'd 
At the arm'd man sideways, pitying as it 

seem'd, 
Or self involved ; but when she learnt his face, 
Remembering hisill-omen'd song, arose 
Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him 

grew 
Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and he said : 

'*0 fair and strong and terrible! Lioness 
That with your long locks play the Lion's 

mane! 
But Love and Nature, these are two more ter- 
rible 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks. 
We vanquished, you the Victor of your will. 
What would you more? give her the child! re- 
main 
Orb'd in your isolation: he is dead, 
Or all as dead : henceforth we let you be : 
Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 
Lest, where you seek the common love of these. 
The common hate with the revolving wheel 
Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 
Break from a darkened future, crown'd with 

fire, 
And tread you out for ever: but howsoe'er 
Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 
To hold your own, deny not hers to her. 



THE PRINCESS. 115 

Give her the child ! O if , I say, you keep 
One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved 
The breast that fed or arm that dandled you, 
Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer, 
Give her the child! or if you scorn to lay it, 
Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours. 
Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault 
The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill. 
Give me it: I will give it her.'* 

He said : 
At first her eye with slow dilation roird 
Dry flame, she listening: after sank and sank 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
Full on the child; she took it: ** Pretty bud! 
Lily of the vale! half-open*d bell of the woods! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance, mystery, 
Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; 
These men are hard upon us as of old. 
We two must part : and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
In the dead prime: but may thy mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish 

it 
Gentle as freedom" — here she kiss'd it: then — 
**A11 good go with thee! take it, Sir," and so 
Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 
Who turned half round to Psyche as she sprang 
To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks; 
Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot. 



116 THE PRINCESS. 

And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough, 
And in her hunger mouthed and mumbled it, 
And hid her bosom with it ; after that 
Put on more calm and added suppliantly : 

**We two were friends: I go to mine own 

land 
For ever: find some other: as for me 
I scarce am fit for your great plans: yet speak 

to me, 
Say one soft word and let me part forgiven.'* 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac. '*Ida — 'sdeath! you blame the 

man; 
You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
I am your warrior: I and mine have fought 
Your battle: kiss her; take her hand, she 

weeps : 
'Sdeath! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than 

see it. ' ' 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, 
And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
And moved beyond his custom, Gama said: 

"I've heard that there is iron in the blood. 
And I believe it. Not one word? not one? 
Whence drew you this steel temper? not from 

me, 
Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 
She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — • 
•Our Ida has a heart' — just ere she died — 



THE PRINCESS. 117 

* But see that some one with authority 

Be near her still, * and I — I sought for one — 

All people said she had authority — 

The Lady Blanche: much profit! Not one 

word ; 
No! tho' your father sues; see how you stand 
Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights 

maim*d, 
I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 
For your wild whim : and was it then for this. 
Was it for this we gave our palace up, 
Where we withdrew from summer heats and 

' state, 
And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, 
And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 
Ere you were born to vex us? Is it kind? 
Speak to her I say: is this not she of whom. 
When first she came, all flush'd you said to me 
Now had you got a friend of your own age, 
Now could you share your thought ; now should 

men see 
Two women faster welded in one love 
Than pairs of wedlock; she you walk' d with, 

she 
You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the 

tower. 
Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth. 
And right ascension. Heaven knows what; and 

now 
A word, but one, one little kindly word, 
Not one to spare her: out upon you, flint! 
You love nor her, nor me, nor any; nay. 
You shame your mother's judgment, too. Not 

one? 



118 THE PRINCESS. 

You will not? well — no heart have you, or such 
As fancies like the vermin in a nut 
Have fretted all to dust and bitterness. " 
So said the small king moved beyond his 
wont. 

But Ida stood nor spoke, drained of her force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 
Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor 

wept: 
Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth 
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
In a still water : then brake out my sire. 
Lifting his grim head from my wounds. '*0 

you, 
Woman, whom we thought woman even now. 
And were half fool'd to let you tend our 

son, 
Because he might have wished it — but we see 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, 
And think that you might mix his draught 

with death, 
When your skies change again: the rougher 

hand 
Is safer: on to the tents: take up the Prince.'* 

He rose, and while each ear was prick *d to 

attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimm'd her 

broke 
A genial warmth and light once more, and 

shone 
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 



THE PRINCESS. 119 

**CGme hither. O Psyche,** she cried out, 

**embrace me, come, 
Quick while I melt ; make reconcilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour: 
Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 
Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 
I seem no more : I want forgiveness too ; 
I should have had to do with none but maids. 
That have no links with men. Ah, false but 

dear, 
Dear traitor, too much loved, why? — why? — 

Yet see, 
Before these kings we embrace you yet once 

more 
With all forgiveness, all oblivion. 
And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, O sire. 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon 

him. 
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him. 
This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it ; 
Taunt me no more: yourself and yours shall 

have 
Free adit ; we will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times each to her proper hearth : 
What use to keep them here — now? grant my 

prayer. 
Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king : 
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 
Which kills me with myself, and drags me 

down 
From my fixt height to mob me up with all, 
The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 
Poor weakling ev*n as they are.** 



120 THE PRINCESS. 

Passionate tears 
Follow'd: the king replied not : Cyril said: 
** Your brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
Of your great head — for he is wounded too — 
That you may tend upon him with the prince. ' ' 
** Ay so,*' said Ida with a bitter smile, 
**Our laws are broken: let him enter too." 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, 
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
Petitioned too for him. *'Ay so," she said, 
*'I stagger in the stream; I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour: 
We break our laws with ease, but let it be." 
*'Ay so?" said Blanche: '*^ Amazed am I to hear 
Your Highness: but your Highness breaks with 

ease 
The law your Highness did not make: 'twas I. 
I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 
And block'd them out; but these men came to 

woo 
Your Highness — verily I think to win." 

So she, and turned askance a wintry eye: 
But Ida with a voice, that like a bell 
Toird by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn. 

** Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but 
all. 
Not only he, but by my mother's soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit, 
Till the storm die! but had you stood by us. 
The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 



THE PRINCESS. 121 

Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, 
But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your 

likes. 
We brook no further insult but are gone. ' ' 

She turn'd; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 
Her brother came ; the king her father charmed 
Her wounded soul with words : nor did mine 

own 
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and 

bare 
Straight to the doors : to them the doors gave 

way 
Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shrieked 
The virgin marble under iron heels : 
And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and 

there 
Rested: but great the crush was, and each 

base. 
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd 
In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
Of female whisperers : at the further end 
Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats 
Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear: but in the center stood 
The common men with rolling eyes; amazed 
They glared upon the women, and aghast 
The women stared at these, all silent, save 
When armor clashed or jingled, while the day, 
Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 
A flying splendor out of brass and steel 



122 THE PRINCESS. 

That o*er the statues leant from head to head, 
Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm, 
Now set a wrathful Dianas moon on flame, 
And now and then an echo started up, 
And shuddering fled from room to room, and 

died 
Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance: 
And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors 
To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 
To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it; 
And others otherwhere they laid ; and all 
That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 
And chariot, many a maiden passing home 
Till happier times; but some were left of those 
Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, 
From those two hosts that lay beside the walls. 
Walked at their will, and everything was 

changed. 



Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; 
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 

But O too fond, when have I answer' d thee? 

Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : 
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die, 

Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live. 

Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seaPd: 
I strove against the stream and all in vain : 
Let the great river take me to the main: 

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 

Ask me no more. 



123 



THE PRINCESS. 125 



PART VII. 

So was their sanctuary violated, 

So their fair college turn'd to hospital; 

At first with all confusion : and by and by 

Sweet order lived again with other laws : 

A kindlier influence reign 'd; and everywhere 

Low voices with the ministering hand 

Hung round the sick : the maidens came, they 

talked, 
They sang, they read : till she not fair began 
To gather light, and she that was, became 
Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro 
With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, 
Like creatures native unto gracious act. 
And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies fail'd; seldom she spoke: but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
.Darkening her female field: void was her use. 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 
O'er land and main, and sees a great black 

cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore. 
And suck the blinding splendor from the sand. 



126 THE PRINCESS. 

And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 
Expunge the world: so fared she gazing 

there ; 
So blackened all her world in secret, blank 
And waste it seem'd and vain; till down she 

came, 
And found fair peace once more among the 

sick. 

And twilight dawn'd; and mom by morn 

the lark 
Shot up and shrill* d in flickering gyres, but I 
Lay silent in the mufHed cage of life : 
And twilight gloom'd; and broader-grown the 

bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and 

Heaven, 
Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 
Deeper than those weird doubts could reach 

me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving Universe, 
Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
That nursed me, more than infants in their 

sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian : with her oft, 
Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 
Court-favor: here and there the small bright 

head, 
A light of healing, glanced about the couch. 
Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 



THE PRINCESS. 127 

To wile the length from languorous hours, and 

draw 
The sting from pain; nor seem'd it strange 

that soon 
He rose up whole, and those fair charities 
Join'd at her side; nor stranger seem'd that 

hearts 
So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love, 
Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper 

down, 
And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtained 
At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had 

sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields 
She needs must wed him for her own good 

name ; 
Not tho* he built upon the babe restored ; 
Nor tho* she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
A little flush *d, and she past on; but each 
Assumed from thence a half-consent involved 
In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Nor only these: Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at will, and flying struck 
With showers of random sweet on maid and 

man; 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim. 



128 THE PRINCESS. 

Nor did mine own now reconciled; nor yet 
Did those twin- brothers, risen again and whole ; 
Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat: 
Then came a change ; for sometimes I would 

catch 
Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard. 
And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 
**You are not Ida;" clasp it once again. 
And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not. 
And call her sweet, as if in irony. 
And call her hard and cold which seem*d a 

truth : 
And still she fear*d that I should lose my mind, 
And often she believed that I should die : 
Till out of long frustration of her care. 
And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, 
And watches in the dead, the dark, when 

clocks 
Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or 

call'd 
On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 
And out of memories of her kindlier days, 
And sideliong glances at my father's grief, 
And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 
And out of hauntings of my spoken love. 
And lonely listenings to my mutter' d dream. 
And often feeling of the helpless hands, 
And wordless broodings on the wasted 

cheek — 
From all a closer interest flourish 'd up, 
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these. 
Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 



THE PRINCESS. 129 

By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first 
And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 
But such as gathered color day by day. 

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to 

death 
For weakness : it was evening : silent light 
Slept on the painted walls, wherein were 

wrought 
Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and storm 'd 
At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they 

cramm*d 
The forum, and half-crush*d among the rest 
A dwarf -like Cato cower'd. On the other side 
Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 
A train of dames : by axe and eagle sat, 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman 

scowls. 
And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, 
The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused 
Hortensia pleading : angry was her face. 

I saw the forms: I knew not where I was: 
They did but look like hollow shows ; nor more 
Sweet Ida : palm to palm she sat : the dew 
Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape • 
And rounder seem'd: I moved: I sigh'd: a 

touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
Mine down my face, and with what life I had. 
And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
So drenched it is with tempest, to the sun, 

9 Princess 



130 THE PRINCESS. 

Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter 'd whisperingly : 

**If you be, what I think you, some sweet 
dream, 
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: 
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
I ask you nothing : only, if a dream. 
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night 
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die. * ' 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one 

sign, 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd ; she 

paused ; 
She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry; 
Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death ; 
And I believed that in the living world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips; 
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 
Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe. 
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 
Than in her mould that other, when she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 
And down the streaming crystal dropt; and 

she 
Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 
Naked, a double light in air and wave, 
To meet her Graces, where they decked her out 
For worship without end ; nor end of mine. 
Stateliest, for thee ! but mute she glided forth, 



THE PRINCESS. 131 

Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, 
Fiird thro* and thro* with Love, a happy sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, held 
A volume of the Poets of her land : 
There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 

"Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: 
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me. 

Now droops the milk white peacock like a ghost. 
And like a ghost she glimmers on me. 

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
And slips into thejbosom of the lake : 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in me." 

I heard her turn the page; she found a small 
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 

"Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) 
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come. 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize. 



132 THE PRINCESS. 

Or red with spirited purple of the vats, 

Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 

With Death and Morning on the silver horns, 

Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 

Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 

That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 

To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 

But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 

To find him in the valley ; let the wild 

Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 

That like a broken purpose waste in air: 

So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 

Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 

Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 

Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound. 

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; 

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro* the lawn. 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 

And murmuring of innumerable bees." 



So she low-toned ; while with shut eyes I lay 
Listening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect 

face : 
The bosom with long sighs labor'd; and meek 
Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous 

eyes, 
And the voice trembled and the hand. She 

said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd 
In sweet humility; had fail'd in all; 
That all her labor was but as a block 
Left in the quarry; but she still were loth, 
She still were loth to yield herself to one 
That wholly scorned to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 



THE PRINCESS. 13^ 

She pray'd me not to judge their cause from 

her 
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than 

power 
In knowledge: something wild within her 

breast, 
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 
And she had nursed me there from week to 

week: 
Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
To vex true hearts : yet was she but a girl— 
**Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce! 
When comes another such? never, I think, 
Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs.'* 

Her voice 
Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 
And her great heart thro' all the faultless Past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ;; 
Till notice of a change in the dark world 
Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird. 
That early woke to feed her little ones. 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 
*' Blame not thyself too much," I said, *'nor 

blame 
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws ; 
These were the rough ways of the world till 

now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf d or godlike, bond or free: 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 



134 THE PRINCESS. 

The shining steps of nature,shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
How shall men grow? but work no more alone! 
Our place is much : as far as in us lies 
We two will serve them both in aiding her — 
Will clear away the parasitic forms 
That seem to keep her up but df^g her down — 
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
Within her — let her make herself her own 
To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
For woman is not undevelopt man, 
But diverse : could we make her as the man, 
Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is 

this, 
Not like to like, but like in difference. 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow 
The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height. 
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the 

world ; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 
Till at the last she set herself to man. 
Like perfect music unto noble words ; 
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers. 
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
Self-reverent each and reverencing each. 
Distinct in individualities, 
But like each other ev'n as those who love. 
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men : 



THE PRINCESS. 135 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste 

and calm : 
Then springs the crowning race-of humankind. 
May these things be!" 

Sighing she spoke **I fear 
They will not.'' 

**Dear, but let us type them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword 

rest 
Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
The single pure and perfect animal, 
The two-ceird heart beating, with one full 

stroke. 
Life." 

And again sighing she spoke: '*A dream 
That once was mine! what woman taught you 

this?" 

** Alone," I said, **from earlier than I know, 
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 
I loved the woman : he, that doth not, lives 
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self. 
Or pines in sad experience worse than death. 
Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with 

crime : 
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 
Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants. 
No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 



136 THE PRINCESS. 

Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
And girdled her with music. Happy he 
With such a mother ! faith in womankind 
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things 

high 
Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 
He shall not blind his soul with clay." 

**But I," 
Said Ida, tremulously, **so all unlike — 
It seems you love to cheat yourself with words : 
This mother is your model. I have heard 
Of your strange doubts : they well might be : I 

seem 
A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; 
You cannot love me. ' ' 

** Nay but thee," I said 
*' From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, 
Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 
Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, 

and forced 
Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood : now, 
Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee. 
Indeed I love: the new day comes, the light 
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are 

dead, 
My haunting sense of hollow shows : the change, 



THE PRINCESS. 137 

This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear, 
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 
Like yonder morning on the blind half -world ; 
Approach and fear not; breathe upon my 

brows ; 
In that fine air I tremble, all the past 
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 
Is morn to more, and all the rich to come. 
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive 

me, 
I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride, 
My wife, my life. O we will walk this world, 
Yoked in all exercise of noble end. 
And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee: 

come, 
Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; 
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me. '* 



10 Princess 



138 THE PRINCESS. 



CONCLUSION. 

So closed our tale, of which I give you all 
The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 
The words are mostly mine; for when we 

ceased 
There came a minute's pause, and Walter sa'id, 
**I wish she had not yielded!" then to me, 
*'What, if you drest it up poetically!'* 
So pray'd the men, the women: I gave assent: 
Yet how to bind the scatter 'd scheme of seven 
Together in one sheaf? What style could 

suit? 
The men required that I should give through- 
out 
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, 
With which we banter'd little Lilia first: 
The women — and perhaps they felt their 

power, 
For something in the ballads which they sang, 
Or in their silent influence as they sat. 
Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque. 
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 
They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 
A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 
Not make her true-heroic — true sublime? 
Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 
Which yet with such a framework scarce could 
be. 



THE PRINCESS. 139 

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, 

Betwixt the mockers and the realists: 

And I, betwixt them both, to please them 

both, 
And yet to give the story as it rose, 
I moved as in a strange diagonal. 
And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
In our dispute : the sequel of the tale 
Had touched her; and she sat, she pluck'd the 

grass, 
She flung it from her, thinking: last, she fixt^ 
A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
**You — tell us what we are*' who might have 

told, 
For she was cramm'd with theories out of 

books, 
But that there rose a shout : the gates were 

closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now,, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these : we climb 'd 
The slope to Vivian place, and turning saw 
The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace ; 
Gray hills alone among their massive groves ; 
Trim hamlets; here and there a rustic tower 
Half lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat ; 
The shimmering glimpses of a stream; the 

seas, 
A red sail, or a white; and far beyond, 
Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 



140 THE PRINCESS. 

**Look there, a garden!" said my college 

friend, 
The Tory member's elder son, *'and there! 
God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, 
And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have 

made. 
Some patient force to change them when we 

will. 
Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 
But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat. 
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head. 
The king is scared, the soldier will not fight. 
The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 
A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 
In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 
No graver than a schoolboys* barring out; 
Too comic for the solemn things they are. 
Too solemn for the comic touches in them. 
Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 
As some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas! 
I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad. * ' 

**Have patience," I replied, ** ourselves are 
full 
Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth : 
For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, 
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith, 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 



THE PRINCESS. 141 

Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs: there is a hand that 

guides.** 
In such discourse we gained the garden rails, 
And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 
Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, 
Among six boys, head under head, and looked 
No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, 
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
A raiser of huge melons and of pine, % 

A patron of some thirty charities, 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A quarter- sessions chairman, abler none; 
Fair-hair*d and redder than a windy morn; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of 

those 
That stood the nearest — now address'd to 

speech — 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 
To follow: a shout rose again, and m.ade 
The long line of the approaching rookery 

swerve 
From the elms, and shook the branches of the 

" deer 
From slope to slope thro* distant ferns, and 

rang 
Beyond the bourn of sunset; O, a shout 
More joyful than the city roar that hails 
Premier or king! Why should not these great 

Sirs 
Give up their parks some dozen times a year 



142 THE PRINCESS. 

To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried, 
I likewise, and in groups they streamed away. 

But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, 
So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we 

sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, 
Perchance upon the future man : the walls 
Blackened about us, bats wheel* d, and owls 

whoop'd, 
And gradually the powers of the night, 
That range above the region of the wind. 
Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
Beyond all thought into the Heaven of 

Heavens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly, 
Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph 
From those rich silks, and home well-pleased 
we went. 



MAUD; A MONODRAMA, 



PART I. 
I. 
I. 

I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little 

wood, 
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with 

blood-red heath, 
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror 

of blood, 
And Echo there, whatever is ask 'd her, answers 

**Death.'' 

II. 

For there in the ghastly pit long since a body 

was found, 
His who had given me life — O father! O God! 

was it well? — 
Mangled, and flattened, and crushed, and dinted 

into the ground : 
There yet*lies the rock that fell with him when 

he fell. 

III. 

Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a 
vast speculation had faiPd, 
143 



144 MAUD. 

And ever he mutter 'd and madden'd, and ever 

wann'd with despair, 
And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken 

worldling wail'd, 
And the flying gold of the ruin*d woodlands 

drove thro' the air. 

IV. 

I remember the time, for the roots of my hair 

were stirr'd 
By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by 

a whisper'd fright, 
And my pulses closed their gates with a shock 

on my heart as I heard 
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the 

shuddering night. 

V. 

Villainy somewhere! whose? One says, we are 

villains all. 
Not he : his honest fame should at least by me 

be maintained : 
But that old man, now lord of the broad estate 

and the Hall, 
Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left 

us flaccid and drained. 

VI. 

Why do they prate of the blessings 6f Peace? 
We have made them a curse. 

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is 
not its own ; 

And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it bet- 
ter or worse 




" She moved, and at her feet the volume fell."— Page 133. 

The Pjjnceys. 



MAUD. 145 

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on 
his own hearthstone? 



VII. 

But these are the days of advance, the works 

of the men of mind, 
When who but a fool would have faith in a 

tradesman's ware or his word? 
Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and 

that of a kind 
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing 

the sword. 

VIII. 

Sooner or later I too may passively take the 

print 
Of the golden age — why not? I have neither 

hope nor trust; 
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face 

as a flint. 
Cheat and be cheated, and die: who knows> 

we are ashes and dust. 



IX. * 

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the 
days gone by, 

When the poor are hovel'd and hustled to- 
gether, each sex, like swine. 

When only the ledger lives, and when only not 
all men lie ; 

Peace in her vineyard — yes! — but a company 
forges the wine. 

10 



146 MAUD. 



And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffi- 
an's head, 

Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the 
trampled wife, 

And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the 
poor for bread. 

And the spirit of murder works in the very 
means of life, 

XL 

And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the vil- 
lainous center-bits 

Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the 
moonless nights, 

While another is cheating the sick of a few last 
gasps, as he sits 

To pestle a poisoned poison behind his crimson 
lights. 

XII. 

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for 
a burial fee, 

And Timour- Mammon grins on a pile of chil- 
dren's bones, 

Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by 
land and by sea, 

War with a thousand battles, and shaking a 
hundred thrones. 

XIII. 

For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder 
round by the hill, 



MAUD. 147 

And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the 
three-decker out of the foam. 

That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would 
leap from his counter and till, 

And strike, if he could, were it but with his 
cheating yardwand, home. 

XIV. 

What ! am I raging alone as my father raged in 
his mood? 

Must I too creep to the hollow and dash my- 
self down and die 

Rather than hold by the law that I made, 
nevermore to brood 

On a horror of shattered limbs and a wretched 
swindler's lie? 

XV. 

Would there be sorrow for me? there was love 

in the passionate shriek, 
Love for the silent thing that had made false 

haste to the grave — 
Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought 

he would rise and speak 
And rave at the lie and the liar, ah God, as he 

used to rave. 

XVI. 

I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of 

the moor and the main. 
Why should I stay? can a sweeter chance ever 

come to me here? 
O, having the nerves of motion as well as the 

nerves of pain. 



148 MAUD. 

Were it not wise if I fled from the place and 
the pit and the fear? 

XVII. 

Workmen up at the Hall! — they are coming 
back from abroad; 

The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of 
a millionaire : 

I have heard, I know not whence, of the sin- 
gular beauty of Maud ; 

I play 'd with the girl when a child ; she prom* 
ised then to be fair. 

XVIII. 

Maud with her venturous climbings and tum- 
bles and childish escapes, 

Maud the delight of the village, the ringing 
joy of the Hall, 

Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my 
father dangled the grapes, 

Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon- 
faced darling of all, — 

XIX. 

What is she now? My dreams are bad. She 

may bring me a curse. 
No, there is fatter game on the moor ; she will 

let me alone. 
Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether 

woman or man be the worse. 
I will bury myself in myself, and the Devil 

may pipe to his own. 



MAUD. 149 

II. 

Long have I sigh* d for a calm: God grant I 

may find it at last ! 
It will never be broken by Maud, she has 

neither savor nor salt, 
But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when 

her carriage past. 
Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her; 

where is the fault? 
All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not 

to be seen) 
Faultily faujltless, icily regular, splendidly null, 
Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it 

had not been 
For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's 

defect of the rose, 
Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, 

too full. 
Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a 

sensitive nose, 
From which I escaped heart-free, with the 

least little touch of spleen. 



III. 

Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cru- 
elly meek, 

Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly 
was drown 'd, 

Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead 
on the cheek. 

Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a 
gloom profound; 



160 MAUD. 

Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a 

transient wrong 
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever 

as pale as before 
Growing and fading and growing upon me 

without a sound, 
Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half 

the night long 
Growing and fading and growing, till I could 

bear it no more, 
But arose, and all by myself in my own dark 

garden ground. 
Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung ^ 

shipwrecking roar. 
Now to the scream of a madden'd beach 

dragg'd down by the wave, 
Walk'd in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, 

and found 
The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low ia 

his grave. 

IV. 

I. 

A million emeralds break from the ruby-budded 
lime ♦ 

In the little grove where I sit — ah, wherefore 
cannot I be 

Like things of the season gay, like the bounti- 
ful season bland, 

When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of 
a softer clime. 

Half lost in the liquid azure bloom of a cres- 
cent of sea, 



MAUD. 151 

The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of 
the land? 

II. 

Below me, there, is the village, and looks how 

quiet and small ! 
And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, 

scandal, and spite: 
And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many 

lies as a Czar ; 
And here on the landward side, by a red rock, 

glimmers the Hall ; 
And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass 

like a light; 
But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my 

leading star ! 

III. 

When have I bow'd to her father, the 

wrinkled head of the race? 
I met her to-day with her brother, but not to 

her brother I bow'd: 
I bow'd to his lady- sister as she rode by on the 

moor; 
But the fire of a foolish pride flash*d over her 

beautiful face ; 

child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in 

being so proud ; 
Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am 
» nameless and poor. 

IV. 

1 keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to 

slander and steal ; 



152 MAUD. 

I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a 

stoic, or like 
A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its 

way: 
For nature is one with rapine, a harm no 

preacher can heal ; 
The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow 

spear'd by the shrike, 
And the whole little wood where I sit is a 

world of plunder and prey. 



We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty 
fair in her flower ; 

Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an un- 
seen hand at a game 

That pushes us off from the board, and others 
ever succeed? 

Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here 
for an hour ; 

We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin 
at a brother's shame ; 

However we brave it out, we men are a little 
breed. 

VI. 

A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Mas- 
ter of Earth, 

For him did his high sun flame, and his river 
billowing ran. 

And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's 
crowning race. 

As nine months go to the shaping an infant 
ripe for his birth. 



MAUD. lo3 

So many a million of ages have gone to the 

making of man: 
He now is first, but is he the last? is he not 

too base? 

VII. 

The man of science himself is fonder of glory, 
and vain, 

An eye well-practiced in nature, a spirit 
bounded and poor ; 

The passionate heart of the poet is whirled into 
folly and vice. 

I would not marvel at either, but keep a tem- 
perate brain ; 

For not to desire or admire, if a man could 
learn it, were more 

Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a 
garden of spice. 

VIII. 

For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid 

by the veil. 
Who knows the ways of the world, how God 

will bring them about? 
Our planet is one, the suns are many, the 

world is wide. 
Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if 

a Hungary fail? 
Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or 

v/ith knout? 
I have not made the world, and He that made 

it will guide. 



154 MAUD. 



IX. 



Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet wood- 
land ways, 

Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace 
be my lot, 

Far-off from the clamor of liars belied in the 
hubbub of lies ; 

From the long-neck 'd geese of the world that 
are ever hissing dispraise 

Because their natures are little, and, whether 
he heed it or not, 

Where each man walks with his head in a 
cloud of poisonous flies. 

X. 

And most of all would I flee from the cruel 
madness of love. 

The honey of poison-flowers and all the meas- 
ureless ill. 

Ah Maud, you milk-white fawn, you are all 
unmeet for a wife. 

Your mother is mute in her grave as her image 
in marble above ; 

Your father is ever in London, you wander 
about at your will ; 

You have but fed on the roses and lain in the 
lilies of life. 



MAUD. 155 



A voice by the cedar tree 

In the meadow under the Hall! 

She is singing an air that is known to me, 

A passionate ballad gallant and gay, 

A martial song like a trumpet's call! 

Singing alone in the morning of life, 

In the happy morning of life and of May, 

Singing of men that in battle array, 

Ready in heart and ready in hand, 

March with banner and bugle and fife 

To the death, for their native land. 

n. 

Maud with her exquisite face, 
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, 
And feet like sunny gems on an English green. 
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, 
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot 

die. 
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and 

mean, 
And myself so languid and base. 

III. 

Silence, beautiful voice ! 

Be still, for you only trouble the mind 

With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 

A glory I shall not find. 

Still ! i will hear you no more, 

For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice 

But to move to the meadow and fall before 



156 MAUD. 

Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore, 
Not her, who is neither courtly not kind. 
Not her, not her, but a voice. 

VI. 

I. 

Morning arises stormy and pale. 

No sun, but a wannish glare 

In fold upon fold of hueless cloud, 

And the budded peaks of the wood are bow*d 

Caught and cuff'd by the gale: 

I had fancied it would be fair. 

II. 

Whom but Maud should I meet 

Last night, when the sunset burn'd 

On the blossom'd gable-ends 

At the head of the village street, 

Whom but Maud should I meet? 

And she touch'd my hand with a smile so 

sweet. 
She made me divine amends 
For a courtesy not returned. 

III. 

And thus a delicate spark 

Of glowing and growing light 

Thro' the livelong hours of the dark 

Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams. 

Ready to burst in a color'd flame; 

Till at last when the morning came 

In a cloud, it faded, and seems 

But an ashen-gray delight. 



MAUD. 157 



IV. 

What if with her sunny hair, 

And smile as sunny as cold, 

She meant to weave me a snare 

Of some coquettish deceit, 

Cleopatra-like as of old 

To entangle me when we met, 

To have her lion roll in a silken net 

And fawn at a victor's feet. 



Ah, what shall I be at fifty 

Should Nature keep me alive, 

If I find the world so bitter 

When I am but twenty-five? 

Yet, if she were not a cheat. 

If Maud were all that she seem'd. 

And her smile were all that I dream'd. 

Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 

VI. 

What if tho* her eyes seem*d full 
Of a kind intent to me. 
What if that dandy-despot, he, 
That jewerd mass of millinery. 
That oird and curl'd Assyrian Bull 
Smelling of musk and of insolence. 
Her brother from whom I keep aloof. 
Who wants the finer politic sense 
To mask, tho* but in his own behoof. 
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn — 
What if he had told her yestermorn 
How prettily for his own sweet sake 



158 MAUD. 

A face of tenderness might be feign'd, 
And a moist mirage in desert eyes, 
That so, when the rotten hustings shake 
In another month to his brazen lies, 
A wretched vote may be gain'd. 

VII. 

For a raven ever croaks at my side, 

Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward, 

Or thou wilt prove their tool. 

Yea, too, myself from myself I guard, 

For often a man's own angry pride 

Is cap and belts for a fool. 

VIII. 

Perhaps the smile and tender tone 

Came out of her pitying womanhood. 

For am I not, am I not, here alone 

So many a summer since she died. 

My mother, who was so gentle and good? 

Living alone in an empty house, 

Here half hid in the gleaming wood, 

Where I hear the dead at midday moan 

And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse, 

And my own sad name in corners cried. 

When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown 

About its echoing chambers wide, 

Till a morbid hate and horror have grown 

Of a world in which have hardly mixt. 

And a morbid eating lichen fixt 

On a heart half turned to stone. 



MAUD. 159 



IX. 



heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught 
By that you swore to withstand? 

For what was it else within me wrought 
But, I fear, the new strong wine of love, 
That made my tongue so stammer and trip 
When I saw the treasured splendor, her hand, 
Come sliding out of her sacred glove, 
And the sunlight broke from her lip? 

X. 

1 have play'd with her when a child; 
She remembers it now we meet. 

Ah well, well, well, I may be beguiled 

By some coquettish deceit. 

Yet, if she were not a cheat. 

If Maud were all that she seem'd. 

And her smile had all that I dream 'd, 

Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 



VIL 



Did I hear it half in a doze 

Long since, I know not where? 

Did I dream it an hour ago. 
When asleep in this arm-chair? 

II. 

Men were drinking together, 
Drinking and talking of me ; 



160 MAUD. 

**Well, if it prove a girl, the boy- 
Will have plenty: so let it be." 

III. 

Is it an echo of something 
Read with a boy's delight, 

Vizrers nodding together 
In some Arabian night? 

IV. 

Strange, that I hear two men, 
Somewhere, talking of me ; 

**Well, if it prove a girl, my boy 
Will have plenty: so let it be." 



VIII. 

She came to the village church, 

And sat by a pillar alone; 

An angel watching an nrn 

Wept over her, carved in stone ; 

And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, 

And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd 

To find they were met by my own ; 

And suddenly, sweetly, my heart beat stronger 

And thicker, until I heard no longer 

The snowy-banded, dilettante, 

Delicate-handed priest intone ; 

And thought, is it pride, and mused and sigh'd 

''No surely, now it cannot be pride." 



MAUD. 161 

^ IX. 

I was walking a mile, 
More than a mile from the shore, 
The snn look'd out with a smile 
Betwixt the cloud and the moor, 
And riding at set of day- 
Over the dark moor land, 
Rapidly riding far away, 
She waved to me with her hand. 
There were two at her side, 
Something flash 'd in the sun, 
Down by the hill I saw them ride 
In a moment they were gone : 
Like a sudden spark 
Struck vainly in the night, 
Thon returns the dark 
With no more hope of light. 



X. 

I. 

Sick, am I sick of a jealous dread? 

Was not one of the two at her side. 

This new-made lord, whose splendor plucks 

The slavish hat from the villager's head? 

Whose old grandfather has lately died. 

Gone to a blacker pit, for whom 

Grimy nakedness dragging his trucks 

And laying his trams in a poisoned gloom 

Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine 

Master of half a servile shire. 

And left his coal all turn'd into gold 

11 Princess 



162 MAUD. 

To a grandson, first of his noble line, 
Rich in the grace all women desire, 
Strong in the power that all men adore, 
And simper and set their voices lower, 
And soften as if to a girl, and hold 
Awe-stricken breaths at a work divine, 
Seeing his gewgaw castle shine. 
New as his title, built last year. 
There amid perky larches and pine, 
And over the sullen-purple moor 
(Look at it) pricking a cockney ear. 

II. 

What, has he found my jewel out? 
For one of the two that rode at her side 
Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he: 
Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride. 
Blithe would her brother's acceptance be. 
Maud could be gracious too, no doubt, 
To a lord, a captain, a padded shape, 
A bought commission, a waxen face 
A rabbit mouth that is ever agape — 
Bought? what is it he cannot buy? 
And therefore splenetic, personal, base, 
A wounded thing with a rancorous cry, 
At war with myself and a wretched race. 
Sick, sick to the heart of life, am I. 

III. 

Last week came one to the county town. 
To preach our poor little army down. 
And play the game of the despot kings, 
Tho' the state has done it and thrice as well 
This broad-brimm*d hawker of holy things. 



MAUD. 163 

Whose ear is cramm'd with his cotton, and 

rings 
Even in dreams to the chink of his pence, 
This huckster put down war! can he tell 
Whether war be a cause or a consequence? 
Put down the passions that make earth Hell! 
Down with ambition, avarice, pride. 
Jealousy, down ! cut off from the mind 
The bitter springs of anger and fear; 
Down too, down at your own fireside, 
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
For each is at war with mankind. 

IV. 

I wish I could hear again 

The chivalrous battle-song 

That she warbled alone in her joy! 

I might persuade myself then 

She would not do herself this great wrong, 

To take a wanton dissolute boy 

For a man and leader of men. 

V. 

Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand. 
Like some of the simple great ones gone 
For ever and ever by, 
One still strong man in a blatant land, 
Whatever they call him, what care I, 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat — one 
Who can rule and dare not lie. 

VI. 

And ah for a man to arise in me. 
That the man I am may cease to be ! 



164 MAUD. 

XL 



let the solid ground 
Not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found 

What some have found so sweet; 
Then let come what come may, 
What matter if I go mad, 

1 shall have had my day. 

II. 

Let the sweet heavens endure, 
Not close and darken above me 

Before I am quite sure 

That there is one to love me; 

Then let come what come may 

To a life that has been so sad, 

I shall have had my day, 

XIL 



Birds in the high Hall-garden 
When twilight was falling, 

Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, 
They were crying and calling. 

II. 

Where was Maud? in our wood; 

And I, who else, was with her, 
Gathering woodland lilies, 

Myriads blow together. 



MAUD. 165 



III. 



Birds in our wood sang 
Ringing thro* the valleys, 

Maud is here, here, here 
In among the lilies. 

IV. 

I kiss'd her slender hand, 
She took the kiss sedately; 

Maud is not seventeen, 
But she is tall and stately. 



I to cry out on pride 

Who have won her favor ! 

Maud were sure of Heaven 
If lowliness could save her. 

VI. 

1 know the way she went 

Home with her maiden posy. 
For her feet have touched the meadows 
And left the daisies rosy. 

VII. 

Birds in the high Hall-garden 
Were crying and calling to her, 

Where is Maud, Maud, Maud? 
One is come to woo her. 

VIII. 

Look, a horse at the door, 

And little King Charley snarling, 



166 MAUD. 

Go back, my lord, across the moor, 
You are not her darling. 

XIII. 



Scorn'd, to be scorn'd by one that I scorn, 

Is that a matter to make me fret? 

That a calamity hard to be borne? 

Well, he may live to hate me yet. 

Fool that I am to be vext with his pride ! 

I past him, I was crossing his lands ; 

He stood on the path a little aside; 

His face, as I grant, in spite of spite. 

Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and white. 

And six feet two, as I think, he stands; 

But his essences turn'd the live air sick. 

And barbarous opulence jewel-thick 

Sunn*d itself on his breast and his hands. 

TI. 

Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, 
I long'd so heartily then and there 
To give him the grasp of fellowship; 
But while I past he was humming an air, 
Stopt, and then with a riding-whip 
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot. 
And curving a contumelious lip, 
Gordonized me from head to foot 
With a stony British stare. 

HI. 

Why sits he here in his father's chair? 
That old man never comes to his place: 



MAUD. 167 

Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen? 
For only once, in the village street, 
Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face, 
A gray old wolf and a lean. 
Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat ; 
For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit. 
She might by a true descent be untrue ; 
And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet: 
Tho* I fancy her sweetness only due 
To the sweeter blood by the other side ; 
Her mother has been a thing complete, 
However she came to be so allied. 
And fair without, faithful within, 
Maud to him is nothing akin ; 
Some peculiar mystic grace 
Made her only the child of her mother, 
And heap'd the whole inherited sin 
On that huge scapegoat of the race, 
All, all upon the brother. 

IV. 

Peace, angry spirit, and let him be! 
Has not his sister smiled on me? 



XIV. 

I. 

Maud has a garden of roses 
And lilies fair on the lawn ; 
There she walks in her state 
And tends upon bed and bower. 
And thither I climb*d at dawn 
And stood by her garden-gate ; 



168 MAUD. 

A lion ramps at the top, 

He is claspt by a passion-flower. 

II. 

Maud*s own little oak-room 

(Which Maud, like a precious stone 

Set in the heart of the carven gloom, 

Lights with herself, when alone 

She sits by her music and books 

And her brother lingers late 

With a roystering company) looks 

Upon Maud's own garden-gate: 

And I thought as I stood, if a hand, as white 

As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid 

On the hasp of the window, and my Delight 

Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to 

glide. 
Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down to 

my side, 
There were but a step to be made. 

in. 

The fancy flatter'd my mind, 
And again seem'd overbold; 
Now I thought that she cared for me, 
Now I thought she was kind 
Only because she was cold. 

IV. 

I heard no sound where I stood 

But the rivulet on from the lawn 

Running down to my own dark wood ; 

Or the voice of the long sea-Vv-ave as it swell'd 

Now and then in the dim-gray dawn; 



MAUD. 1G9 

But I looked, and round, all round the house I 

beheld 
The death-white curtain drawn; 
Felt a horror over me creep, 
Prickle my skin and catch my breath, 
Knew that the death-white curtain meant but 

sleep, 
Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the 

sleep of death. 

XV. 

So dark a mind within me dwells, 
And I make myself such evil cheer, 

That if I be dear to some one else, 

Then some one else may have much to fear; 

But if I be dear to some one else. 

Then I should be to myself more dear. 

Shall I not take care of all that I think, 

Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink, 

If I be dear, 

If I be dear to some one else. 

XVI. 



This lump of earth has left his estate 
The lighter by the loss of his weight; 
And so that he find what he went to seek, 
And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown 
His heart in the gross mud-honey of town, 
He may stay for a year who has gone for a 

week: 
But this is the day when I must speak, 

12 Princess 



no MAUD. 

And I see my Oread coming down, 
O this is the day! 

beautiful creature, what am I 
That I dare to look her way ; 
Think I may hold dominion sweet, 

Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast, 
And dream of her beauty with tender dread, 
From the delicate Arab arch of her feet 
To the grace that, bright and light as the crest 
Of a peacock, sits on her shining head, 
And she knows it not : O, if she knew it. 
To know her beauty might half undo it. 

1 know it the one bright thing to save 
My yet young life in the wilds of Time, 
Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime, 
Perhaps from a selfish grave. 

II. 

What, if she be fastened to his fool lord, 

Dare I bid her abide by her word? 

Should I love her so well if she 

Had given her word to a thing so low? 

Shall I love her as well if she 

Can break her word were it even for me? 

I trust that it is not so. 



III. 

Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart. 
Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye, 
For I must tell her before we part, 
I must tell her, or die. 



MAUD. 171 



XVII. 



Go not, happy day, 

From the shining fields, 
Go not, happy day, 

Till the maiden yields. 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks, 

And a rose her mouth 
When the happy Yes 

Falters from her lips, 
Pass and blush the news 

Over glowing ships ; 
Over blowing seas. 

Over seas at rest, 
Pass the happy news, 

Blush it thro' the West; 
Till the red man dance 

By his red cedar-tree. 
And the red man's babe 

Leap, beyond the sea. 
Blush from West to East, 

Blush from East to West, 
Till the West is East, 

Blush it thro' the West 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks. 

And a rose her mouth. 



172 MAUD. 

XVIII. 



I have led her home, my love, my only friend. 

There is none like her, none. 

And never yet so warmly ran my blood 

And sweetly, on and on 

Calming itself to the long-wish *d-f or end, 

Full to the banks, close on the promised good. 

II. 

None like her, none. 

Just now the dry-tongued laurels' pattering 

talk 
Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk. 
And shook my heart to think she comes once 

more; 
But even then I heard her close the door, 
The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is 

gone. 

III. 

There is none like her, none. 
Nor will be when our summers have deceased. 
O, art thou sighing for Lebanon 
In the long breeze that streams to thy deli- 
cious East, 
Sighing for Lebanon, 

Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased, 
Upon a pastoral slope as fair. 
And looking to the South, and fed 
With honey'd rain and delicate air. 
And haunted by the starry head 
Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, 



MAUD. 173 

And made my life a perfumed altar-flame; 
And over whom thy darkness must have spread 
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 
Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 
Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom 
she came. 

IV. 

Here will I lie, while these long branches 

sway, 
And yon fair stars that crown a happy day 
Go in and out as if at merry play, 
Who am no more so all forlorn. 
As when it seem'd far better to be born 
To labor and the mattock-harden'd hand, 
Than nursed at ease and brought to understand 
A sad astrology, the boundless plan 
That makes you tyrants in your iron sifies. 
Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, 
Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand 
His nothingness into man. 

V. 

But now shine on, and what care I, 
Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 
The countercharm of space and hollow sky. 
And do accept my madness, and would die 
To save from some slight shame one simple 
girl. 

VI. 

Would die; for sullen-seeming Death may give 

More life to Love than is or ever was 

In our low world, where yet 'tis sweet to live. 



174 MAUD. 

Let no one ask how it came to pass; 
It seems that I am happy, that to me 
A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, 
A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 

VII. 

Not die ; but live a life of truest breath, 
And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 
O, why should Love, like men in drinking- 
songs, 
Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death? 
]\Iake answer, Maud my bliss, 
Maud made my i\Iaud by that long loving kiss, 
Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this? 
**The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 
With dear Lovers tie, makes Love himself 
more dear. " 

VIII. 

Ts that enchanted moan onh' the swell 
Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay? 
And hark the clock within, the silver knell 
Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white. 
And died to live, long as my pulses play; 
But now by this my love has closed her sight 
And given false death her hand, and stolen 

away 
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies 

dwell 
Among the fragments of the golden day. 
May nothing there her maiden grace affright! 
Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. 
My bride to be, my evermore delight, 



MAUD. 175 

My own heart's heart, my ownest own, fare- 
well; 
It is but for a little space I go : 
And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell 
Beat to the noiseless music of the night ! 
Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow 
Of your soft splendors that you look so bright? 
I have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. 
Beat, happy stars, timing with things below. 
Beat with my heart more blest than heart can 

tell. 
Blest, but for some dark and undercurrent 

woe 
That seems to draw — but it shall not be so : 
Let all be well, be well. 

XIX. 

I. 

Her brother is coming back to-night, 
Breaking up my dream of delight. 

II. 

My dream? do I dream of bliss? 

I have walk'd awake with Truth. 

O when did a morning shine 

So rich in atonement as this 

For my dark-dawning youth, 

Darken'd watching a mother decline 

And that dead man at her heart and mine. 

For who was left to watch her but I? 

Yet so did I let my freshness die. 



176 MAUDr^" 

III. 

I trust that I did not talk 

To gentle Maud in our walk 

(For often in lonely wanderings 

I have cursed him even to lifeless things) 

But I trust that I did not talk, 

Not touch on her father's sin: 

I am sure I did but speak 

Of my mother's faded cheek 

When it slowly grew so thin, 

That I felt she was slowly dying 

Vext with lawyers and harass'd with debt: 

For how often I caught her with eyes all wet, 

Shaking her head at her son and sighing 

A world of trouble within! 

IV. 

And Maud too, Maud was moved 

To speak of the mother she loved 

As one scarce less forlorn, 

Dying abroad and it seems apart 

From him who had ceased to share her hearty 

And ever mourning over the feud. 

The household Fury sprinkled with blood 

By which our houses are torn: 

How strange was what she said, 

When only Maud and the brother 

Hung over her dying bed — 

That Maud's dark father and mine 

Had bound us one to the other, 

Betrothed us over their wine, 

On the day when Maud was born ; 

Seal'd her mine from her first sweet breath. 



MAUD. 17T 

Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death. 
Mine, mine — our fathers have sworn. 

V. 

But the true blood spilt had in it a heat 
To dissolve the precious seal on a bond, 
That, if left uncancerd, had been so sweet: 
And none of us thought of a something be- 
yond, 
A desire that awoke in the heart of a child, 
As it were a duty done to the tomb, 
To be friends for her sake, to be reconciled; 
And I was cursing them and my doom. 
And letting a dangerous thought run wild 
While often abroad in the fragrant gloom 
Of foreign churches — I see her there. 
Bright English lily, breathing a pra}^er 
To be friends, to be reconciled! 

VI. 

But then what a flint is he! 

Abroad, at Florence, at Rome, 

I find whenever she touch 'd on me 

This brother had laughed her down, 

And at last, when each came home, 

He had darkened into a frown. 

Chid her, and forbid her to speak 

To me, her friend of the years before; 

And this was what had redden'd her cheek 

When I bow'd to her on the moor. 

VII. 

Yet Maud, altho' not blind 

To the faults of his heart and mind, 

12 



178 MAUD. 

I see she cannot but love him, 

And says he is rough but kind, 

And wishes me to approve him, 

And tells me, when she lay 

Sick once, with a fear of worse. 

That he left his wine and horses and play, 

Sat with her, read to her, night and day. 

And tended her like a nurse. 

VIII. 

Kind? but the deathbed desire 
Spurn'd by this heir of the liar — 
Rough but kind? yet I know 
He has plotted against me in this. 
That he plots against me still. 
Kind to Maud? that were not amiss. 
Well, rough but kind ; why let it be so : 
For shall not Maud have her will? 



IX. 

For, Maud, so tender and true, 

As long as my life endures 

I feel I shall owe you a debt. 

That I never can hope to pay ; 

And if ever I should forget 

That I owe this debt to you 

And for your sweet sake to yours; 

O then, what then shall I say? — 

If ever I should forget. 

May God make me more wretched 

Than ever I have been yet ! 



MAUD. 179 



X. 



So now I have sworn to bury 

All this dread body of hate, 

I feel so free and so clear 

By the loss of that dead weight, 

That I should grow light-headed, I fear, 

Fantastically merry ; 

But that her brother comes, like a blight 

On my fresh hope, to the Hall to-night. 



XX. 



Strange, that I felt so gay, 
Strange, that I tried to-day 
To beguile her melancholy; 
The Sultan, as we name him, — 
She did not wish to blame him — 
But he vext her and perplext her 
With his worldly talk and folly: 
Was it gentle to reprove her 
For stealing out of view 
From a little lazy lover 
Who but claims her as his due? 
Or for chilling his caresses 
By the coldness of her manners. 
Nay, the plainness of her dresses? 
Now I know her but in two, 
Nor can pronounce upon it 
If one should ask me whether 
The habit, hat, and feather. 
Or the frock and gipsy bonnet 
Be the neater and completer; 



180 MAUD. 

For nothing can be sweeter 
Than maiden Maud in either. 

II. 

But to-morrow, if we live, 
Our ponderous squire will give 
A grand political dinner 
To half the squirelings near; 
And Maud will wear her jewels, 
And the bird of prey will hover, 
And the titmouse hope to win her 
With his chirrup at her ear. 

III. 

A grand political dinner 

To the men of many acres, 

A gathering of the Tory, , 

A dinner and then a dance 

For the maids and marriage-makers. 

And every eye but mine will glance 

At Maud in all her glory. 

IV. 

For I am not invited, 

But, with the Sultan's pardon, 

I am as well delighted, 

For I know her own rose-garden, ' 

And I mean to linger in it 

Till the dancing will be over; 

And then, oh then, come out to me 

For a minute, but a minute. 

Come out to your own true lover. 

That your true lover may see 

Your glory also, and render 



MAUD. 181 

All homage to his own darling, 
Queen Maud in all her splendor. 

XXI. 

Rivulet crossing my ground, 

And bringing me down from the Hall 

This garden-rose that I found, 

Forgetful of Maud and me, 

And lost in trouble and moving round 

Here at the head of a tinkling fall. 

And trying to pass to the sea; 

O Rivulet, born at the Hall, 

My Maud has sent it by thee 

(If I read her sweet will right) 

On a blushing mission to me, 

Saying in odor and color, **Ah, be 

Among the roses to-night.*' 

XXII. 
I. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown, 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone ; 

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
And the musk of the rose is blown. 

II. 

For a breeze of morning moves. 
And the planet of Love is on high. 

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 
On a bed of daffodil sky, 



182 MAUD. 

To faint in the light of the sun she loves, 
To faint in his light, and to die. 

III. 

All night have the roses heard 

The flute, violin, bassoon; 
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 

To the dancers dancing in tune ; 
Till a silence fell with the waking bird. 

And a hush with the setting moon. 

I said to the lily, ** There is but one 

With whom she has heart to be gay. 
When will the dancers leave her alone? 

She is weary of dance and play. " 
Now half to the setting moon are gone. 

And half to the rising day; 
Low on the sand and loud on the stone 

The last wheel echoes away. 

V. 

I said to the rose, ''The brief night does 

In babble and revel and wine. 
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those. 

For one that will never be thine? 
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose 

*'For ever and ever, mine. '* 

VI. 

And the soul of the rose went into my blood 
As the music clash'd in the hall; 

And long by the garden lake I stood. 
For I heard your rivulet fall 



MAUD. 183 

From the lake to the meadow and on to the 
wood, 
Our wood, that is dearer than all ; 

VII. 

From the meadow your walks have left so 
sweet 

That whenever a March wind sighs 
He sets the jewel-print of your feet 

In violets blue as your eyes, 
To the woody hollows in which we meet 

And the valleys of Paradise. 

VIII. 

The slender acacia would not shake 

One long milk-bloom on the tree ; 
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake 

As the pimpernal dozed on the lea ; 
But the rose was awake all night for your sake, 

Knowing your promise to me ; 
The lilies and roses were all awake, 

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 

IX. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 
Come hither, the dances are done, 

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 
Queen lily and rose in one ; 

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 
To the flowers, and be their sun. 

X. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 
From the passion-flower at the gate. 



184 MAUD. 

She is coming, my dove, my dear; 

She is coming, my life, my fate ; 
The red rose cries, *'She is near, she is near;" 

And the white rose weeps, **She is late;" 
The larkspur listens, **I hear, I hear;" 

And the lily whispers, ' ' I wait. * ' 

XI. 

She is coming, my own, my sweet; 

Were it ever so airy a tread, 
My heart would hear her and beat, 

Were it earth in an earthly bed;^ 
My dust would hear her and beat, 

Had I lain for a century dead; 
Would start and tremble under her feet, 

And blossom in purple and red. 



MAUD. 185 



PART II 
L 



**The fault was mine, the fault was mine** — 
Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still, 
Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the 

hill?— 
It is this guilty hand ! — 
And there rises ever a passionate cr)^ 
From underneath in the darkening land — 
What is it, that has been done? 
O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky, 
The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun, 
The fires of Hell and of Hate ; 
For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word, 
When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, 
He came with the babe-faced lord; 
Heap'd on her terms of disgrace, 
And while she wept, and I strove to be cool. 
He fiercely gave me the lie. 
Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, 
And he struck me, madman, over the face. 
Struck me before the languid fool, 
Who was gaping and grinning by: 
Struck for himself an evil stroke : 
Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe ; 
For front to front in an hour we stood. 



186 MAUD. 

And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke 
From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood, 
And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless 

code, 
That must have life for a blow. 
Ever and ever afresh they seem*d to grow. 
Was it he lay there v;ith a fading eye? 
**The fault was mine," he whisper'd, "fly!" 
Then glided out of the joyous wood 
The ghastly Wraith of one that I know; 
And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, 
A cry for a brother's blood: 
It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, 

till I die. 

II. 

Is it gone? my pulses beat — 

What was it! a lying trick of the brain? 

Yet I thought I saw her stand, 

A shadow there at my feet, 

High over the shadowy land. 

It is gone ; and the heavens fall in a gentle 
rain, 

When they should burst and drown with delug- 
ing storms 

The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust, 

The little hearts that knew not hovv^ to forgive: 

Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee 
just. 

Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous 
worms. 

That sting each other here in the dust ; 

We are not worthy to live. 



MAUD. 187 

IL 



See what a lovely shell, 
Small and pure as a pearl, 
Lying close to my foot, 
Frail, but a work divine, 
Made so fairly well 
With delicate spire and whorl, 
How exquisitely minute, 
A miracle of design ! 

II. 

What is it? a learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name. 
Let him natne it who can, 
The beauty would be the same. 

III. 

The tiny cell is forlorn, 
Void of the little living will 
That made it stir on the shore. 
Did he stand at the diamond door 
Of his house in«a rainbow frill? 
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, 
A golden foot or a fairy horn 
Thro* his dim water-world? 

IV. 

Slight, to be crushed with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand. 
Small, but a work divine. 
Frail, but of force to withstand. 
Year upon year, the shock 



188 MAUD. 

Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker*s oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock, 
Here on the Breton strand! 

V. 

Breton, not Briton ; here 

Like a shipwrecked man on a coast 

Of ancient fable and fear — 

Plagued with a flitting to and fro, 

A disease, a hard mechanic ghost 

That never came from on high 

Nor ever arose from below, 

But only moves with the moving eye. 

Flying along the land and the main — 

Why should it look like Maud? 

Am I to be overawed 

By what I cannot but know 

Is a juggle born of the brain? 

VI. 

Back from the Breton coast. 

Sick in a nameless fear. 

Back to the dark sea-line 

Looking, thinking of all I have lost ; 

An old song vexes my ear; 

But that of Lamech is mina 

vii. 

For years, a measureless ill, 
For years, for ever, to part — 
But she, she would love me still; 
And as long, O God, as she 
Have a grain of love for me, 



MAUD. 189 

So long, no doubt, no doubt, 
Shall I nurse in my dark heart, 
However weary, a spark of will 
Not to be trampled out. 

VIII. 

Strange, that the mind, when fraught 

With a passion so intense 

One would think that it well 

Might drown all life in the eye, — 

That it should, by being so overwrought, 

Suddenly strike on a sharper sense 

For a shell, or a flower, little things 

Which else would have been past by! 

And now I remember, I, 

When he lay dying there, 

I noticed one of his many rings 

(For he had many, poor worm) and thought 

It is his mother's hair. 

IX. 

Who knows if he be dead? 

Whether I need have fled? 

Am I guilty of blood? 

However this may be, 

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good. 

While I am over the sea ! 

Let me and my passionate love go by, 

But speak to her all things holy and high, 

Whatever happen to me ! 

Me and my harmful love go by; 

But come to her waking, find her asleep. 

Powers of the height. Powers of the deep, 

And comfort her tho' I die. 



190 MAUD. 

III. 

Courage, poor heart of stone! 

I will not ask thee why 

Thou canst not understand 

That thou art left for ever alone : 

Courage, poor stupid heart of stone. — 

Or if I ask thee why, 

Care not thou to reply : 

She is but dead, and the time is at hand 

When thou shalt more than die. 

IV. 



O that 'twere possible 

After long grief and pain 

To find the arms of my true love 

Round me once again ! 

II. 

When I was wont to meet her 
In the silent woody places 
By the home that gave me birth. 
We stood tranced in long embraces 
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter 
Than anything on earth. 

III. 

A shadow flits before me. 

Not thou, but like to thee : 

Ah Christ, that it were possible 

For one short hour to see 

The souls we loved, that they might tell us 

What and where they be. 



MAUD 191 



IV. 



It leads me forth at evening, 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me. 

When all my spirit reels 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights, 

And the roaring of the wheels. 

V. 

Half the night I waste in sighs. 
Half in dreams I sorrow after 
The delight of early skies ; 
In a wakeful doze I sorrow 
For the hand, the lip, the eyes, 
For the meeting of the morrow, 
The delight of happy laughter. 
The delight of low replies. 

VI. 

*Tis a morning pure and sweet. 
And a dewy splendor falls 
On the little flower that clings 
To the turrets and the walls ; 
*Tis a morning pure and sweet. 
And the light and shadow fleet; 
She is walking in the meadow. 
And the woodland echo rings; 
In a moment we shall meet; 
She is singing in the meadow 
And the rivulet at her feet 
Ripples on in light and shadow 
To the ballad that she sings. 



192 MAUD. 



VII, 



Do I hear her sing as of old, 

My bird with the shining head, 

My own dove with the tender eye? 

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry, 

There is some one dying or dead, 

And a sullen thunder is roll'd; 

For a tumult shakes the city, 

And I wake, my dream is fled; 

In the shuddering dawn, behold. 

Without knowledge, without pity. 

By the curtains of my bed 

That abiding phantom cold. 

VIII. 

Get thee hence, nor come again. 
Mix not memory with doubt, 
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain, 
Pass and cease to move about ! 
'Tis the blot upon the brain 
That will show itself without. 

IX. 

Then I rise, the eavedrops fall. 
And the yellow vapors choke 
The great city sounding wide; 
The day comes, a dull red ball 
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke 
On the misty river-tide. 

X. 

Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame. 

It crosses here, it crosses there, 




"I remember when he lay dying there." — Page 189. 



MAUD. 193 

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, 
The shadow still the same ; 
And on my heavy eyelids 
My anguish hangs like shame. 

XI. 

Alas for her that met me, 

That heard me softly call, 

Came glimmering thro' the laurels 

At the quiet evenfall, 

In the garden by the turrets 

Of the old manoral hall. 

XII. 

Would the happy spirit descend, 
From the realms of light and song, 
In the chamber or the street, 
As she looks among the blest, 
Should I fear to greet my ffriend 
Or to say, ** Forgive the wrong,'* 
Or to ask her, **Take me, sweet, 
To the regions of thy rest?" 

XIII. 

But the broad light glares and beats. 

And the shadow flits and fleets 

And will not let me be ; 

And I loathe the squares and streets, 

And the faces that one meets, / 

Hearts with no love for me : 

Always, I long to creep 

Into some still cavern deep, 

There to weep, and weep, and weep. 

My whole soul out to thee. 

13 Princess 



194 MAUD. 

V. 



Dead, long dead, 

Long dead! 

And my heart is a handful of dust, 

And the wheels go over my head, 

And my bones are shaken with pain, 

For into a shallow grave they are thrust, 

Only a yard beneath the street, 

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat, 

The hoofs of the horses beat. 

Beat into my scalp and my brain, 

With never an end to the stream of passing 

feet, 
Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying, 
Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter. 
And here beneath it is all as bad. 
For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not 

so; 
To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad? 
But up and down and to and fro. 
Ever about me the dead men go ; 
And then to hear a dead man chatter 
Is enough to drive one mad. 



II. 

Wretchedest age, since Time began, * 

They cannot even bury a man ; 

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that 

are gone, 
Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read ; 
It is that which makes us loud in the world of 

the dead; 



MAUD. 195 

There is none that does his work, not one ; 
A touch of their office might have sufficed, 
But the churchmen fain would kill their 

church, 
As the churches have kiird their Christ. 

III. 

See, there is one of us sobbing, 

No limit to his distress ; 

And another, a lord of all things, praying 

To his own great self, as I guess ; 

And another, a statesman there, betraying 

His party-secret, fool, to the press ; 

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing 

The case of his patient — all for what? 

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head, 

And wheedle a world that loves him not, 

For it is but a world of the dead. 

IV. 

Nothing but idiot gabble ! 

For the prophecy given of old 

And then not understood, 

Has come to pass as foretold; 

Not let any man think for the public good, 

But babble, merely for babble. 

For I never whisper'd a private affair 

Within the hearing of cat or mouse, 

No, not to myself in the closet alone. 

But I heard it shouted at once from the top of 

the house; 
Everything came to be known. 
Who told him we were there? 



196 MAUD. 



V. 



Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back 
From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he 

used to lie ; 
He has gather'd the bones for his overgrown 

whelp to crack ; 
Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and 

die. 

VI. 

Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip. 

And curse me the British vermin, the rat; 

I know not whether he came in the Hanover 

ship, 
But I know that he li-es and listens mute 
In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes : 
Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it, 
Except that now we poison our babes, poor 

souls ! 
It is all used up for that. 

VII. 

Tell him now: she is standing here at my 

head; 
Not beautiful now, not even kind ; 
He may take her now ; for she never speaks 

her mind, 
But is ever the one thing silent here. 
She is not of us, as I divine ; 
She comes from another stiller world of the 

dead, 
Stiller, not fairer than mine. 



MAUD. 197 



VIII. 



But I know where a garden grows, 

Fairer than aught in the world beside, 

All made up of the lily and rose 

That blow by night, when the season is good, 

To the sound of dancing music and flutes; 

It is only flowers, they had no fruits. 

And I almost fear they are not roses, but 

blood ; 
For the keeper was one, so full of pride. 
He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride; 
For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes, 
Would he have that hole in his side? 

IX. 

But what will the old man say? 

He laid a cruel snare in a pit 

To catch a friend of mine one stormy day; 

Yet now I could even weep to think of it ; 

For what will the old man say 

When he comes to the second corpse in the pit? 

X. 

Friend, to be struck by the public foe, 
Then to strike him and lay him low. 
That were a public merit, far. 
Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin ; 
But the red life spilt for a private blow — 
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war 
Are scarcely even akin. 

XI. 

O me, why have they not buried me deep 
enough? 



198 MAUD. 

Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough, 

Me, that was never a quiet sleeper? 

Maybe still I am but half dead ; 

Then I cannot be wholly dumb ; 

I will cry to the steps above my head, 

And somebody, surely, some kind heart will 

come 
To bury me, bury me. Deeper, ever so little 

deeper. 



MAUD., 199 



PART III. 
VI. 



My life has crept so long on a broken wing 
Thro* cells of madness, haunts of horror and 

fear, 
That I come to be grateful at last for a little 

thing; 
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of 

year 
When the face of night is fair on the dewy 

downs. 
And the shining daffodil dies, and the Chariot- 
eer 
And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns 
Over Orion's grave low down in the west. 
That like a silent lightning under the stars 
She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band 

of the blest. 
And spoke of a hope for the world in the com- 
ing wars — 
**And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have 

rest 
Knowing I tarry for thee, '' and pointed to Mars 
As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's 
breast. 



200 MAUD. 



II. 



And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear 
delight 

To havelook'd, tho* but in a dream, upon eyes 
so fair, 

That had been in a weary world my one thing 
bright ; 

And it was but a dream, yet it lightened my 
despair 

When I thought that a war would arise in de- 
fense of the right, 

That an iron tyranny now should bend or 
cease. 

The glory of manhood stand on his ancient 
height. 

Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionaire: 

No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace 

Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, 

And watch her harvest ripen, her herd in- 
crease. 

Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore, 

And the cobweb woven across the cannon's 
throat 

Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind 
no more. 

III. 

And as months ran on and rumor of battle 

grew, 
**It is time, it is time, O passionate heart," 

said I 
(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure 

and true). 



MAUD. 201 

**It 19 time, O passionate heart and morbid 

eye, 
That old hysterical mock-disease should die. ' ' 
And stood on a giant deck and mix'd my 

breath 
With a loyal people shouting a battle cry. 
Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly 
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of 

death. 

IV. 

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims 

Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of 
gold. 

And love of a peace that was full of wrongs 
and shames 

Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told; 

And hail once more to the banner of battle 
unroird! 

Tho' many a light shall darken, and many 
shall weep 

For those that are crushed in the clash of jar- 
ring claims. 

Yet God's just wrath shall be wreaked on a 
giant liar ; 

And many a darkness into the light shall leap, 

And shine in the sudden making of splendid 
names. 

And noble thought be freer under the sun, 

And the heart of a people beat with one desire ; 

For the peace, that I deem'd no peace, is over 
and done, 

And now by the side of the Black and the Bal- 
tic deep, 

14 Princess 



2C2 MAUD. 

And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, 

flames 
The blood- red blossom of war with a heart of 

fire. 



Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like 

a wind, 
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, 

we are noble still, 
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the 

better mind ; 
It is better to fight for the good than to rail at 

the ill; 
I have felt with my native land, I am one with 

my kind, 
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom 

assigned. 



ENOCH ARDEN. 

Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm r 
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands ; 
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf 
In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and 

higher 
A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill;: 
And high in heaven behind it a gray down > 
With Danish barrows ; and a hazelwood, 
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes 
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down. 

Here on this beach a hundred years ago, 
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, 
The prettiest little damsel in the port, 
And Philip Ray, the miller's only son, 
And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad 
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd' 
Among the waste and lumber of the shore,. 
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets,. 
Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn; 
And built their castles of dissolving sand 
To watch them overflow 'd, or following up 
Aud flying the white breaker, daily left 
The little footprint daily washed away. 

A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: 
In this the children play'd at keeping house. 

203 



204 ENOCH ARDEN. 

Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, 
While Annie still was mistress; but at times 
Enoch would hold possession for a week : 
**This is my house and this my little wife.** 
"^Mine too,** said Philip; '*turn and turn 

about:** 
When, if they quarreled, Enoch stronger-made 
Was master : then would Philip, his blue eyes 
All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears. 
Shriek out, **I hate you, Enoch,** and at this 
The little wife would weep for company, 
And pray them not to quarrel for her sake. 
And say she would be little wife to both. 

But when the dawn of rosy childhood past. 
And the new warmth of life's ascending sun 
Was felt by either, either fixt his heart 
On that one girl ; and Enoch spoke his love. 
But Philip loved in silence ; and the girl 
Seem'd kinder unto Philip than to him; 
But she loved Enoch; tho' she knew it not, 
And would if ask'd deny it. Enoch set 
A purpose evermore before his eyes. 
To hoard all savings to the uttermost. 
To purchase his own boat, and make a home 
Por Annie: and so prosper*d that at last 
A luckier or a bolder fisherman, 
A carefuller in peril, did not breathe 
For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast 
Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year 
On board a merchantman, and made himself 
Full sailor; and he thrice had pluck'd a life 
From the dread sweep of the down-streaming 
seas: 



ENOCH ARDEN. 205 

And all men looked upon him favorably: 
And ere he touch'dhis one-and-twentieth May. 
He purchased his own boat, and made a home 
For Annie, neat and nestlike, halfway tip 
The narrow street that clamber*d toward the 
mill. 

Then, on a golden autumn eventide, 
The younger people making holiday, 
With bag and sack and basket, great and small, 
Went nutting to the hazels. Philip stay'd 
(His father lying sick and needing him) 
An hour behind; but as he climbed the hill, 
Just where the prone edge of the wood began 
To feather toward the hollow, saw ihe pair, 
Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand, 
His large gray eyes and weather-beaten face 
All-kindled by a still and sacred fire. 
That burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd, 
And in their eyes and faces read his doom; 
Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd, 
And slipt aside, and like a wounded life 
Crept down into the hollows of the wood ; 
There, while the rest were loud in merry- 
making, 
Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past 
Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart. 

So these were wed, and merrily rang the 
bells, 
And merrily ran the years, seven happy years, 
Seven happy years of health and competence, 
And niutual love and honorable toil; 
With children ; first a daughter. In him woke,^ 



206 ENOCH ARDEN. 

With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish 
To save all earnings to the uttermost, 
And give his child a better bringing-up 
Than his had been, others; a wish renew'd, 
When two years after came a boy to be 
The rosy idol of her solitudes, 
While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas. 
Or often journeying landward ; for in truth 
Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean-spoil 
In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, 
Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales 
Not only to the market-cross were known. 
But in the leafy lanes behind the down. 
Far as the portal- warding lion-whelp. 
And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, 
Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering. 

Then came a change, as all things human 

change. 
Ten miles to northward of the narrow port 
Open'd a larger haven: thither used 
^Enoch at times to go by land or sea ; 
And once when there, and clambering on a 

mast 
In harbor, by mischance he slipt and fell: 
A limb was broken when they lifted him; 
And while he lay recovering there, his wife 
Bore him another son, a sickly one: 
A.nother hand crept too across his trade 
Taking her bread and theirs : and on him fell, 
Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man. 
Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. 
He seem'd as in a nightmare of the night, 
To see his children leading evermore 



ENOCH ARDEN. 207 

Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, 
And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray 'd 
* ' Save them from this, whatever comes to me. ' ' 
And while he pray'd, the master of that ship 
Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance, 
Came, for he knew the man and valued him, 
Reporting of his vessel China-bound, 
And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? 
There yet were many weeks before she sail'd, 
Saird from this port. Would Enoch have the 

place? 
And Enoch all at once assented to it. 
Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer. 

So now that shadow of mischance appeared 
No graver than as when some little cloud 
Cuts off the fiery highway of the sun, 
And isles a light in the offing: yet the wife — 
When he was gone — the children — what to do? 
Then Enoch lay long-pondering on his plans ; 
To sell the boat — and yet he loved her well — 
How many a rough sea had he weathered in her ! 
He knew her, as a horseman knows his horse — 
And yet to sell her — then with what she 

brought 
Buy goods and stores — set Annie forth in trade 
With all that seamen needed for their wives — 
So might she keep the house while he was 

gone. 
Should he not trade himself out yonder? go 
This voyage more than once? yea twice or 

thrice — 
As oft as needed — ^last, returning rich, 
Become the master of a larger craft, 



208 ENOCH ARDEN. 

With fuller profits lead an easier life, 
Have all his pretty young ones educated, 
And pass his days in peace among his own. 

Thus Enoch in his heart determined all : 
Then moving homeward came on Annie pale^ 
Nursing the sickly babe, her latest born. 
Forward she started with a happy cry, 
And laid the feeble infant in his arms; 
Whom Enoch took, and handled all his limbs^ 
Appraised his weight and fondled featherlike, 
But had no heart to break his purposes 
To Annie, till the morrow, when he spoke. 

Then first since Enoch's golden ring had girt 
Her finger, Annie fought against his will: 
Yet not with brawling opposition she, 
But manifold entreaties, many a tear, 
Many a sad kiss by day by night renewed 
(Sure that all evil would come out of it) 
Besought him, supplicating, if he cared 
For her or his dear children, not to go. 
He not for his own self caring but her. 
Her and her children, let her plead in vain ; 
So grieving held his will, and bore it thro'. 

For Enoch parted with his old sea- friend, 
Bought Annie goods and stores, and set his 

hand 
To fit their little streetward sitting-room 
With shelf and corner for the goods and stores. 
So all day long till Enoch's last at home, 
Shaking their pretty cabin, hammer and axe,. 
Auger and saw, while Annie seem'd to hear 



ENOCH ARDEN. 20^ 

Her own death-scaffold raising, shrill' d and 

rang, 
Till this was ended, and his careful hand,— 
The space was narrow, — having ordered all 
Almost as neat and close as Nature packs 
Her blossom or her seedling, paused; and he. 
Who needs would work for Annie to the last,, 
Ascending tired, heavily slept till morn. 

And Enoch faced this morning of farewell 
Brightly and boldly. All his Annie's fears. 
Save, as his Annie's, were a laughter to him. 
Yet Enoch as a brave God-fearing man 
Bow'd himself dowm, and in that mystery 
Where God-in-man is one with man-in-God, 
Pray'd for a blessing on his wife and babes 
Whatever came to him : and then he said 
** Annie, this voyage by the grace of God 
Will bring fair weather yet to all of us. 
Keep a clean hearth and a clear fire for me, 
For ril be back, my girl, before you know it. '* 
Then lightly rocking baby's cradle '*and he, 
This pretty, puny, weakly little one, — 
Nay — for I love him all the better for it — 
God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees 
And I will tell him tales of foreign parts, 
And make him merry, when I come home 

again. 
Come, Annie, come, cheer up before I go." 

Him running on thus hopefully she heard, 
And almost hoped herself; but when he turn'd 
The current of his talk to graver things 
In sailor fashion roughly sermonizing 



210 ENOCH ARDEN. 

On providence and trust in, Heaven, she heard, 
Heard and not heard ;as the village girl, 
Who sets her pitcher underneath the spring, 
Musing on him that used to fill it for her, 
Hears and not hears, and lets it overflow. 

At length she spoke: "O Enoch, you are 
wise; 
And yet for all your wisdom well know I 
That I shall look upon your face no more." 

**Well, then," said Enoch, '*I shall look on 
yours, 
Annie, the ship I sail in passes here 
(He named the day), get you a seaman's glass, 
Spy out my face, and laugh at all your fears. " 

But when the last of those last moments 
came, 
** Annie, my girl, cheer up, be comforted. 
Look to the babes, and till I come again 
Keep everything shipshape, for I must go. 
And fear no more for me ; or if you fear 
Cast all your cares on God ; that anchor holds. 
Is He not yonder in those uttermost 
Parts of the morning? if I flee to these 
Can I go from Him? and the sea is His, 
The sea is His: He made it." 

Enoch rose, 
Cast his strong arms about his drooping wife. 
And kiss*d his wonder-stricken little ones; 
But for the third, the sickly one, who slept 
After a night of feverous wakefulness. 
When Annie would have raised him Enoch said 



ENOCH ARDEN. 211 

*'Wake him not; let him sleep; how should 

the child 
Remember this?" and kiss'd him in his cot. 
But Annie from her baby's forehead dipt 
A tiny curl, and gave it : this he kept 
Thro' all his future; but now hastily caught 
His bundle, waved his hand, and went his way. 

i She when the day that Enoch mentioned, 

came, 
Borrowed a glass, but all in vain: perhaps 
She could not fix the glass to suit her eye : 
Perhaps her eye was dim, hand tremulous; 
She saw him not : and while he stood on deck 
Waving, the moment and the vessel past. 

E'en to the last dip of the vanishing sail 
She watched it, and departed weeping for 

him; 
Then, tho' she mourned his absence as his 

grave, 
Set her sad will no less to chime with his. 
But throve not in her trade, not being bred 
To barter, nor compensating the want 
By shrewdness, neither capable of lies. 
Nor asking overmuch and taking less. 
And still foreboding **what would Enoch say?" 
For more than once, in days of difficulty 
And pressure, had she sold her wares for less 
Than what she gave in buying what she sold : 
She fail'd and sadden'd knowing it; and thus, 
Expectant of that news which never came, 
ain'd for her own a scanty sustenance, 
nd lived a life of silent melancholy. 



212 ENOCH ARDEN. 

Now the third child was sickly-born and 
grew 
Yet sicklier, tho' the mother cared for it 
With all a mother's care: nevertheless, 
Whether her business often caird her from it, 
Or thro' the want of what it needed most, 
Or means to pay the voice who best could tell 
What most it needed — howsoe'er it was. 
After a lingering, — ere she was aware, — 
Like the caged bird escaping suddenly. 
The little innocent soul flitted away. 

In that same week when Annie buried it, 
Philip's true heart, which hungered for her 

peace 
(Since Enoch left he had not look'd upon her). 
Smote him, as having kept aloof so long. 
** Surely, " said Philip, '*I may see her now, 
May be some little comfort;" therefore went, 
Past thro' the solitary room in front, 
Paused for a moment at an inner door. 
Then struck it thrice, and, no one opening, 
Enter'd; but Annie, seated with her grief, 
Fresh from the burial of her little one, 
Cared not to look on any human face. 
But turned her own toward the wall and wept. 
Then Philip standing up said falteringly 
'* Annie, I came to ask a favor of you. " 

He spoke; the passion in her moan'd reply 
** Favor from one so sad and so forlorn 
As I am!" half abash'd him; yet unask'd,. 
His bashfulness and tenderness at war, 
He set himself beside her, saying to her: 



ENOCH ARDEN. 213 

**I came to speak to you of what he wish'd, 
Enoch, your husband : I have ever said 
You chose the best among us — a strong man: 
For where he fixt his heart he set his hand 
To do the thing he will'd, and bore it thro'. 
And wherefore did he go this weary way, 
And leave you lonely? not to see the world — 
For pleasure?— nay, but for the wherewithal 
To give his babes a better bringing-up 
Than his had been, or yours : that was his 

wish. 
And if he come again, vext will he be 
To find the precious morning hours were lost. 
And it would vex him even in his grave, 
If he could know his babes were running wild 
Like colts about the waste. So, Annie, now — 
Have we not known each other all our lives? 
I do beseech you by the love you bear 
Him and his children not to say me nay — 
For, if you will, when Enoch comes again 
Why then he shall repay me — if you will, 
Annie — for I am rich and well-to-do. 
Now let me put the boy and girl to school : 
This is the favor that I came to ask. " 

Then Annie with her brows against the wall 
Answer 'd **I cannot look you in the face; 
I seem so foolish and so broken down. 
When you came in my sorrow broke me down ; 
And now I think your kindness breaks me 

down ; 
But Enoch lives; that is borne in on me: 
He will repay you: money can be repaid; 
Not kindness such as yours. " 



214 ENOCH ARDEN. 

And Philip ask'd 
•*Then you will let me, Annie?** 

There she turn'd, 
She rose, and fixt her swimming eyes upon 

him, 
And dwelt a moment on his kindly face, 
Then calling down a blessing on his head 
Caught at his hand, and wrung it passionately, 
And passed into the little garth beyond. 
So lifted up in spirit he moved away. 

Then Philip put the boy and girl to school, ». 
And bought them needful books, and every- 
way, 
Like one who does his duty by his own. 
Made himself theirs; andtho* for Annie's sake. 
Fearing the lazy gossip of the port, 
He oft denied his heart his dearest wish. 
And seldom crost her threshold, yet he sent 
Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit, 
The late and early roses from his wall. 
Or conies from the down, and now and then, 
With some pretext of fineness in the meal 
To save the offence of charitable, flour 
From his tall mill that whistled on the waste. 

But Philip did not fathom Annie's mind: 
Scarce could the woman when he came upon her, 
Out of full heart and boundless gratitude 
Light on a broken word to thank him with. 
But Philip was her children's all-in-all; 
From distant corners of the street they ran 
To greet his hearty welcome heartily; 



ENOCH ARDEN. 215 

Lords of his house and of his mill were they; 
Worried his passive ear with petty wrongs 
Or pleasures, hung" upon him, play'd with him 
And caird him Father Philip. Philip gain'd 
As Enoch lost; for Enoch seem'd to them 
Uncertain as a vision or a dream, 
Faint as a figure seen in early dawn 
Down at the far end of an avenue. 
Going we know not where : and so ten years, 
Since Enoch left his hearth and native land, 
Fled forward, and no news of Enoch came. 

It chanced one evening Annie's children 

long*d 
To go with others, nutting to the wood, 
And Annie would go with them ; then they 

begg'd 
For Father Philip (as they call'd him) too: 
Him, like the working bee in blossom-dust, 
Blanch 'd with his mill, they found; and saying 

to him 
**Come with us. Father Philip,'* he denied; 
But when the children pluck'd at him to go. 
He laugh'd, and yielded readily to their wish. 
For was not Annie with them? and they went. 

But after scaling half the weary down, 
Just where th^ prone edge of the wood began 
To feather toward the hollow, all her force 
Faird her; and sighing, **Let me rest" she 

said: 
So Philip rested with her well-content ; 
While all the younger ones with jubilant cries 
Broke from their elders, and tumultuously 



216 ENOCH ARDEN. 

Down thro* the whitening hazels made a plunge 
To the bottom, and dispersed, and bent or 

broke 
The lithe reluctant boughs to tear away 
Their tawny clusters, crying to each other 
And calling, here and there, about the wood. 

But Philip sitting at her side forgot 
Her presence, and remembered one dark hour 
Here in this wood, when like a wounded life 
He crept into the shadow: at last he said, 
Lifting his honest forehead, *' Listen, Annie, 
How merry they are down yonder in the wood. 
Tired, Annie?'* for she did not speak a word, 
*' Tired?** but her face had fall'n upon her 

hands ; 
At which, as with a kind of anger in him, 
**The ship was lost," he said, ** the ship was 

lost! 
No more of that ! why should you kill yourself 
And make them orphans quite?** And Annie 

said 
*'I thought not of it: but — I know not why — 
Their voices makes me feel so solitary. * ' 

Then Philip coming somewhat closer spoke. 
*' Annie, there is a thing upon my mind. 
And it has been upon my mind so long. 
That tho* I know not when it first came there, 
I know that it will out at last. O Annie, 
It is beyond all hope, against all chance, 
That he who left you ten long years ago 
Should still be living; well then — let me speak: 
I grieve to see you poor and wanting help : 



ENOCH ARDEN. 217 

I cannot help you as I wish to do 

Unless — they say that women are so quick — 

Perhaps you know what I would have you 

know — 
I wish you for my wife. I fain would prove 
A father to your children : I do think 
They love me as a father : I am sure 
That I love them as if they were mine own ; 
And I believe, if you were fast my wife, 
That after all these sad uncertain years, 
We might be still as happy as God grants 
To any of his creatures. Think upon it : 
For I am well-to-do — no kin, no care, 
No burthen, save my care for you and yours : 
And we have known each other all our lives, 
And I have loved you longer than you know.** 

Then answered Annie: tenderly she spoke: 
**You have been as God's good angel in our 

house. 
God bless you for it, God reward you for it, 
Philip, with something happier than myself. 
Can one love twice? can you be ever loved 
As Enoch was? what is it that you ask? 
"I am content," he answered **to be loved*' 
A little after Enoch. " "O** she cried, 
Scared as it were, **dear Philip, wait a while: 
If Enoch comes — but Enoch will not come — 
Yet wait a year, a year is not so long : 
Surely 1 shall be wiser in a year : 

wait a little!" Philip sadly said 
** Annie, as I have waited all my life 

1 well may wait a little." **Nay," she cried 
**I am bound: you have my promise — in a year: 



2-18 ENOCH ARDEN. 

Will you not bide your year as I bide mine?" 
And Philip answered *'I will bide my year/* 

Here both were mute, till Philip glancing up 
Beheld the dead flame of the fallen day 
Pass from the Danish barrow overhead; 
Then fearing night and chill for Annie, rose 
And sent his voice beneath him thro* the 

wood. 
Up came the children laden with their spoil ; 
Then all descended to the port, and there 
At Annie's door he paused and gave his hand, 
Saying gently ** Annie, when I spoke to you, 
That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong, 
I am always bound to you, but you are free." 
Then Annie weeping answered **I am bound." 

She spoke ; and in one moment as it were, 
While yet she went about her household ways, 
Even as she dwelt upon his latest words. 
That he had loved her longer than she knew, 
That autumn into autumn flash 'd again, 
And there he stood once more before her face, 
Claiming her promise. *'Is it a year?" she 

ask'd. 
**Yes, if the nuts," he said '*be ripe again: 
Come out and see." But she — she put him 

off— 
So much to look to — such a change — a month — 
Give her a month — she knew that she was 

bound — 
A month — no more. Then Philip with his eyes 
Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice 
Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand. 



ENOCH ARDEN. 219 

**Take j^our own time, Annie, take your own 

time.'* 
And Annie could have wept for pity of him ; 
And yet she held him on delayingly 
With many a scarce-believable excuse, 
Trying his truth and his long-sufferance, 
Till half another year had slipt away. 

By this the lazy gossips of the port, 
Abhorrent of a calculation crost, 
Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. 
Some thought that Philip did but trifle with 

her. 
Some that she but held off to draw him on ; 
And others laugh 'd at her and Philip too, 
As simple folk that knew not their own minds. 
And one, in whom all evil fancies clung 
Like serpent eggs together, laughingly 
Would hint at v/orse in either. Her own son 
Was silent, tho* he often look'd his wish; 
But evermore the daughter prest upon her 
To wed the man so dear to all of them 
And lift the household out of poverty: 
And Philip's rosy face contracting grew 
Careworn and wan ; and all these things fell on 

her 
Sharp as reproach. 

At last one night it chanced 
That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly 
Pray'd for a sign *'my Enoch is he gone?'* 
Then compass'd round by the blind wall of 

night 
Brook'd not the expectant terror of her heart, 



220 ENOCH ARDEN. 

Started from bed, and struck herself a light, 
Then desperately seized the holy Book, 
Suddenly set it wide to find a sign, 
Suddenly put her finger on the text, 
**Under the palm-tree." That was nothing 

to her : 
No meaning there: she closed the Book and 

slept: 
When lo : her Enoch sitting on a height, 
Under a palm-tree, over him the Sun : 
'*He is gone, **she thought, **he is happy, he is 

singing 
Hosanna in the highest : yonder shines 
The Sun of Righteousness, and these be palms 
Whereof the happy people strowing cried 
* Hosanna in the highest!' '* Here she woke, 
Resolved, sent for him and said wildly to him 
**There is no reason why we should not wed." 
**Then for God's sake," he ansv/er'd, *'both 

our sakes, 
So you v/ill wed me, let be at once. *' 

So these were wed and merrily rang the 

bells. 
Merrily rang the bells and the}^ were wed. 
But never merrily beat Annie's heart. 
A footstep seem'd to fall beside her path, 
She knew not whence; a whisper on her ear, 
She knew not what, nor loved she to be left 
Alone at home, nor ventured out alone. 
What ail'd her then, that ere she enter'd, 

often 
Her hand dwelt lingeringly on the latch. 
Fearing to enter: Philip thought he knew: 



ENOCH ARDEN. 221 

Such doubts and fears were common to her 

state, 
Being with child: but when her child was 

born, 
Then her new child was as herself renewed. 
Then the new mother came about her heart, 
Then her good Philip was her all-in-all, 
And that mysterious instinct wholly died. 

And where was Enoch? prosperously sail'd 
The ship **Good Fortune," tho' at setting forth 
The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook 
And almost overwhelm 'd her, yet unvext 
She slipt across the summer of the world. 
Then after a long tumble about the Cape 
And frequent interchange of foul and fair, 
She passing thro* the summer world again. 
The breath of heaven came continually 
And sent her sweetly by the golden isles. 
Till silent in her oriental haven. 

There Enoch traded for himself, and bought 
Quaint monsters for the market of those 

times, 
A gilded dragon, also, for the babes. 

Less lucky her home-voyage : at fir* indeed 
Thro' many a fair sea-circle, day by day, 
Scarce-rocking, her full busted figure-head 
Stared o'er the ripple feathering from her 

bows: 
Then foUow'd calms, and then winds variable. 
Then baffling, a long course of them and last 



222 ENOCH ARDEN. 

Storm, such as drove her under moonless 

heavens 
Till hard upon the cry of ** breakers*' came 
The crash of ruin, and the loss of all 
But Enoch and two others. Half the night, 
Buoy'd upon floating tackle and broken spars, 
These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn 
Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea. 

No want was there of human sustenance. 
Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing 

roots ; 
Nor save for pity was it hard to take 
The helpless life so wild that it was tame. 
There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge 
They built, and thatch 'd with leaves of palm, 

a hut, 
Half hut, half native cavern. So the three, 
Set in this Eden of all plenteousness. 
Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content. 

For one, the youngest, hardly more than 

boy, 
Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck, 
Lay lingering out a five-years' death-in-life. 
They could not leave him. After he was gone, 
The two remaining found a fallen stem; 
And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself, 
Fire- hollowing this in Indian-fashion, fell 
Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. 
In those two deaths he read God's warning 

**wait.*' 



ENOCH ARDEN. 223 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
And winding glades high up like ways to 

Heaven, 
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, 
The lightning flash of insect and of bird, 
The luster of the long convolvuluses 
That coird around the stately stems, and ran 
Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the world. 
All these he saw; but what he fain had seen 
He could not see, the kindly human face. 
Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 
The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl 
The league-long roller thundering on the reef, 
The moving whisper of huge trees that 

branched 
And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep 
Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave. 
As down the shore he ranged, or all day long 
Sat often in the seaward gazing gorge, 
A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail: 
No sail from day to day, but every day 
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 
Among the palms and ferns and precipices; 
The blaze upon the waters to the east ; 
The blaze upon his island overhead; 
The blaze upon the waters to the west ; 
Then the great stars that globed themselves in 

Heaven, 
The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again 
The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail. 

There often as he watched or seem'd to 
watch, 



224 ENOCH ARDEN. 

So still, the golden lizard on him paused, 
A phantom made of many phantoms moved 
Before him haunting him, or he himself 
Moved haunting people, things and places, 

known 
Far in a darker isle beyond the line ; 
The babes, their babble, Annie, the small 

house, 
The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes, 
The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, 
The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill 
November dawns and dewy-glooming downs, 
The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, 
And the low moan of leaden-color'd seas. 

Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, 
Tho' faintly, merrily — far and far away — 
He heard the peeling of his parish bells; 
Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up 
Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful 

isle 
Return 'd upon him, had not his poor heart. 
Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
Xets none, who speaks with Him, seem all 

alone, 
Surely the man had died of solitude. 

Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head 
The sunny and rainy seasons came and went 
Year after year. His hopes to see his own. 
And pace the sacred old familiar fields, 
Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doom 
Came suddenly to an end. Another ship 
{She wanted water) blown by baffling winds. 



ENOCH ARDEN. 225 

Like the Good Fortune, from her destined 

course, 
Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where she lay; 
For since the mate had seen at early dawn 
Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle 
The silent water slipping from the hills, 
They sent a crew that landing burst away 
In search of stream or fount, and fiird the 

shores 
With clamor. Downward from his mountain 

gorge 
Stept the long-hair*d long-bearded solitary, 
Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad, 
Muttering and mumbling, idiot like it seem'd, 
With inarticulate rage, and making signs 
They knew not what: and yet he led the way 
To where the rivulet of sweet water ran ; 
And ever as he mingled with the crew. 
And heard them talking, his long-bounden 

tongue 
Was loosen 'd, till he made them understand: 
Whom, when their casks were fill'd they took 

aboard ; 
And there the tale he uttered brokenly, 
Scarce credited at first but more and more, 
Amazed and melted all who listen'd to it: 
And clothes they gave him and free passage 

home; 
But oft he worked among the rest and shook 
His isolation from him. None of these 
Came from his country, or could answer him. 
If questioned, aught of what he cared to know. 
And dull the voyage was with long delays, 
The vessel scarce seaworthy; but evermore 

15 Princess 



226 ENOCH ARDEN. 

His fancy fled before the lazy wind 
Returning, till beneath a clouded moon 
He like a lover down thro' all his blood 
Drew in the dewy meadow.morning-breathy 
Of England, blown across her ghostly wall 
And that same morning officers and men 
Levied a kindly tax upon themselves. 
Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it: 
Then moving up the coast they landed him, 
Ev*n in that harbor whence he sailed before. 

There Enoch spoke no word to any one. 
But homeward — home — what home? had he a 

home? 
His home, he walk'd. Bright was that after- 
noon, 
Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm. 
Where either haven open'd on the deeps, 
Roird a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in 

gray: 
Cut off the length of highway on before. 
And left but narrow breadth to left and right 
Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage. 
On the nigh-naked tree the robin piped 
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze 
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down : 
Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom ; 
Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light 
Flared on him, and he came upon the place. 

Then down the long street having slowly 
stolen, 
His heart foreshadowing all calamity. 
His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the home 



ENOCH ARDEN. 227 

Where Annie lived and loved him, and his 

babes 
In those far-off seven happy years were born ; 
But finding neither light nor murmur there 
(A bill of sale gleam 'd thro* the drizzle) crept 
Still downward thinking, **dead or dead to 

me!** 

Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went. 
Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, 
A front of timber-crost antiquity, 
So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old. 
He thought it must have gone; but he was 

gone 
Who kept it ; and his widow Miriam Lane, 
With daily-dwindling profits held the house; 
A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now 
Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. 
The Enoch rested silent many days. 

But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous, 
Nor let him be, but often breaking in, 
Told him, with other annals of the port, 
Not knowing — Enoch was so brown, so bow'd, 
So broken — all the story of his house. 
His baby's death, her growing poverty, 
How Philip put her little ones to school, 
And kept them in it, his long wooing her, 
Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth 
Of Philip*s child: and o*er his countenance 
No shadow past, nor motion : any one, 
Regarding, well had deem*d he felt the tale 
Less than the teller: only when she closed 
** Enoch, poor man, was cast way and lost," 



228 ENOCH ARDEN. 

He, shaking his gray head pathetically, 
Repeated muttering, **cast away and lost;" 
Again in deeper inward whispers, **lost!" 

But Enoch yearn'd to see her face again; 
*'If I might look on her sweet face again 
And know that she is happy.*' So the thought 
Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth, 
At evening when the dull November day 
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. 
There he sat down gazing on all below : 
There did a thousand memories roll upon him 
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by 
The ruddy square of comfortable light. 
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house, 
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures 
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes 
Against it, and beats out his weary life. 

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, 
The latest house to landward; but behind, 
With one small gate that open'd on the waste, 
Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd: 
And in it throve an ancient evergreen, 
A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk 
Of shingle, and a walk divided it: 
But Enoch shunnVd the raiddle walk and stole 
Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence 
That which he better might have shunn'd, if 

griefs 
Like this have worse or better, Enoch saw. 

For cups and silver on the burnished board 
Sparkled and shone ; so genial was the hearth : 



ENOCH ARDEN. 229 

And on the right hand of the hearth he saw 
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, 
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees ; 
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl, 
A later but a loftier Annie Lee, 
Fair-hair*d and tall, and from her lifted hand 
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring 
To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms, 
Caught at and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd; 
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw 
The mother glancing often toward her babe, 
But turning now and then to speak with him, 
Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong, 
And saying that which pleased him, for he 
smiled. 

Now when the dead man come to life beheld 
His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe 
Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, 
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, 
And his own children tall and beautiful, 
And him, that other, reigning in his place, 
Lord of his rights and of his children's love, — 
Then he, tho* Miriam Lane had told him all. 
Because things seen are mightier than things 

heard, 
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and 

fear'd 
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry. 
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom. 
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth. 

He therefore turning softly like a thief, 
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot 



230 ENOCH ARDEN. 

And feeling all along the garden-wall, 
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found 
Crept to the gate, and open'd it, and closed. 
As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door, 
Behind him, and came out upon the waste. 

And there he would have knelt, but that his 
knees 
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug 
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd. 

"Too hard to bear! why did they take me 
thence? 
O God Almighty, blessed Savior, Thou 
That didst uphold me on my lonely isle. 
Uphold me. Father, in my loneliness 
A little longer! aid me, give me strength 
Not to tell her, never to let her know. 
Help me not to break in upon her peace. 
My children too! must I not speak to these? 
They know me not. I should betray myself. 
Never: No father's kiss for me — the girl 
So like her mother, and the boy, my son." 

There speech and thought and nature fail'd a 

little. 
And he lay tranced; but when he rose and 

paced 
Back toward his solitary home again. 
All down the long and narrow street he went 
Beating it in upon his weary brain. 
As tho' it were the burthen of a song, 
**Not to tell her, never to let her know. " 



ENOCH ARDEN. 231 

He was not all unhappy. His resolve 
Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore 
Prayer from a living source within the will, 
And beating up thro* all the bitter world, 
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 
Kept him a living soul. **This miller's wife/* 
He said to Miriam, **that you spoke about, 
Has she no fear that her first husband lives?*' 
**Ay, ay, poor soul,*' said Miriam, **fear enow! 
If you could tell her you had seen him dead, 
Why, that would be her comfort;** and he 

thought 
** After the Lord has call'd me she shall know, 
I wait His time," and Enoch set himself, 
Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live. 
Almost to all things could he turn his hand. 
Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought 
To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help'd 
At lading and unlading the tall barks. 
That brought the stinted commerce of those 

days : 
Thus earn'd a scanty living for himself: 
Yet since he did but labor for himself, 
Work without hope, there was not life in it 
Whereby the man could live ; and as the year 
Roird itself round again to meet the day 
When Enoch had return*d, a languor came 
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually 
Weakening the man, till he could do no more, 
But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed. 
And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully. 
For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
See thro* the gray skirts of a lifting squall 
The boat that bears the hope of life approach 



232 ENOCH ARDEN. 

To save the life despaired of, than he saw 
Death dawning on him, and the close of all. 

For thro* that dawning gleam 'd a kindlier 

hope 
On Enoch thinking, ** after I am gone. 
Then may she learn I lov'd her to the last.** 
He caird aloud for Miriam Lane and said, 
''Woman, I have a secret — only swear, 
Before I tell you — swear upon the book 
Not to reveal it, till you see me dead. ' ' 
**Dead," clamor'dthe good woman, '*hear him 

talk! 
I warrant, man, that we shall bring you 

round.'* 
** Swear,*' added Enoch sternly, **on the book." 
And on the book, half frighted, Miriam swore. 
Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her, 
*'Did you know Enoch Arden of this town?" 
''Know him?" she said, "I knew him far away. 
Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street; 
Held his head high, and cared for no man, he." 
Slowly and sadly, Enoch answer'd her; 
*'His head is low, and no man cares for him. 
I think I have not three days more to live ; 
I am the man." At which the woman gave 
A half incredulous, half hysterical cry. 
"You Arden, you! nay, — sure he was a foot 
Higher than you be.** Enoch said again, 
"My God has bow'd me down to what I am; 
My grief and solitude have broken me; 
Nevertheless, know you that I am he 
Who married — but that name has twice been 

changed — 



ENOCH ARDEN. 233 

I married hei who married Philip Ray. 
Sit, listen." Then he told her of his voyage, 
His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back, 
His gazing in on Annie, his resolve, 
And how he kept it. As the woman heard, 
Fast flow'd the current of her easy tears, 
While in her heart she yearn'd incessantly 
To rush abroad all round the little haven, 
Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes; 
But awed and promise-bounden she forbore. 
Saying only, '*See your bairns before you go! 
Eh, let me fetch 'em, Arden," and arose 
Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung 
A moment on her words, but then replied : 

**Woman, disturb me not now at the last. 
But let me hold my purpose till I die. 
Sit down again ; mark me and understand, 
While I have power to speak. I charge you 

now, 
When you shall see her, tell her that I died 
Blessing her, praying for her, loving her 
Save for the bar between us, loving her; 
As when she laid her head beside my own. 
And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw 
So like her mother, that my latest breath 
Was spent in blessing her and praying for her. 
And tell my son that I died blessing him. 
And say to Philip that I blest him too; 
He never meant us anything but good. 
But if my children care to see me dead, 
Y/ho hardly knew me living, let them come, 
I am their father; but she must not come. 
For my dead face would vex her after-life. 

16 Princess 



234 ENOCH ARDEN. 

And now there is but one of all my blood 
Who will embrace me in the world-to-be : 
This hair is his: she cut it off and gave it, 
And I have borne it with me all these years. 
And thought to bear it with me to my grave; 
But now my mind is changed, for I shall see 

him, 
My babe in bliss : wherefore when I am gone. 
Take, give her this, for it may comfort her : 
It will moreover be a token to her, 
That I am he." 

He ceased; and Miriam Lane 
Made such a voluble answer promising all, 
That once again he roU'd his eyes upon her 
Repeating all he wish'd, and once again 
She promised. 

Then the third night after this, 
While Enoch slumbered motionless and pale, 
And Miriam watched and dozed at intervals, 
There came so loud a calling of the sea, 
That all the houses in the haven rang. 
He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad 
Crying with a loud voice '*A sail! a sail! 
I am saved;" and so fell back and spoke no 

more. 

So past the strong heroic soul away. 
And when they buried him the little port 
Had seldom seen a costlier funeral. 



TO E. FITZGERALD, 

Old Fitz, who from your suburb grange^. 

Where once I tarried for a while, 
Glance at the wheeling Orb of change. 

And greet it with a kindly smile; 
Whom yet I see as there you sit 

Beneath your sheltering garden-tree, 
And watch your doves about you flit, 

And plant on shoulder, hand and knee, 
Or on your head their rosy feet, 

As if they knew their diet spares 
Whatever moved in that full sheet 

Let down to Peter at his prayers ; 
Who live on milk and meal and grass ; 

And once for ten long weeks I tried 
Your table of Pythagoras, 

And seem'd at first **a thing enskied" 
(As Shakespeare has it) airy-light 

To float above the ways of men, 
Then fell from that half -spiritual height 

Chiird, till I tasted flesh again 
One night when earth was winter-black. 

And all the heavens flashed in frost; 
And on me, half-asleep, came back 

That wholesome heat the blood had lost, 
And set me climbing icy capes 

And glaciers, over which there roU'd 
To meet me long-am: ed vines with grapes 

235 



-286 TO E. FITZGERALD. 

Of Eshcol hugeness ; for the cold 
Without, and warmth within me, wrought 

To mould the dream ; but none can say- 
That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought, 

Who reads your golden Eastern lay, 
Than which I \now no version done 

In English more divinely well ; 
A planet equal to the sun 

Which cast it, that large infidel 
Your Omar ; and your Omar drew 

Full-handed plaudits from our best 
In modern letters, and from two, 

Old friends outvaluing all the rest, 
Two voices heard on earth no more ; 

But we old friends are still alive, 
And I am nearing seventy-four. 

While you have touched at seventy- five. 
And so I send a birthday line 

Of greeting; and my son, who dipt 
In some forgotten book of mine 

With sallow scraps of manuscript. 
And dating many a year ago. 

Has hit on this, which you will take 
My Fitz, and welcome, as I know 

Less for its own than for the sake 
Of one recalling gracious times. 

When, in our younger London days. 
You found some merit in my rhymes, 

And I more pleasure in your praise. 



TIRESIAS. 

I wish I were as in the years of old, 
While yet the blessed daylight made itself 
Ruddy thro' both the roofs of sight, and woke 
These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek 
The meanings ambush 'd under all they saw, 
The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice, 
What omens may foreshadow fate to man 
And woman, and the secret of the Gods. 

My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer. 
Are slower to forgive than human kings. 
The great God, Ares, burns in anger still 
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre, 
Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found 
Beside the springs of Dirce, smote, and still'd 
Thro* all its folds the multitudinous beast, 
The dragon, which our trembling fathers caird 
The God's own son. 

A tale, that told to me, 
When but thine age, by age as winter-white 
As mine is now, amazed, but made me yearn 
For larger glimpses of that more than man 
Which rolls the heavens, and lifts, and lays 

the deep, 
Yet loves and hates with mortal hates and 

loves, 
And moves unseen among the ways of men. 

Then, in my wanderings all the lands that lie 
Subjected to the Heliconian ridge 

237 



238 TIRESIAS. 

Have heard this footstep fall, altho* my wont 
Was more to scale the highest of the heights 
With some strange hope to see the nearer God. 

One naked peak — the sister of the sun 
Would climb from out the dark, and linger 

there 
To silver all the valleys with her shafts — 
There once, but long ago, five-fold thy term 
Of years, I lay; the winds were dead for heat; 
The noonday crag made the hand burn ; and 

sick 
For shadow — not one bush was near — I rose 
Following a torrent till its myriad falls 
Found silence in the hollows underneath. 

There in a secret olive-glade I saw 
Pallas Athene climbing from the bath 
In anger; yet one glittering foot disturbed 
The lucid well ; one snowy knee was prest 
Against the margin flowers; a dreadful light 
Came from her golden hair, her golden helm 
And all her golden armor on the grass, 
And from her virgin breast, and virgin eyes 
Remaining fixt on mine, till mine grew dark 
For ever, and I heard a voice that said 
"'Henceforth be blind, for thou hast seen too 

much. 
And speak the truth that no man may believe. *' 
Son, in the hidden world of sight, that lives 
Behind this darkness, I behold her still, 
Beyond all work of those who carved the stone, 
Beyond all dreams of Godlike womanhood. 
Ineffable beauty, out of whom, at a glance. 
And as it were, perforce, upon me flashed 
The power of prophesying —but to me 



TIRESIAS. 239 

No power— SO chain'd and coupl'd with the 

curse 
Of blindness and their unbelief, who heard 
And heard not, when I spake of famine, plague, 
Shrine-shattering, earthquake, fire, flood, 

thunder-bolt, 
And angers of the Gods for evil done 
And expiation lack'd — no power on Fate, 
Theirs, or mine own! for when the crowd 

would roar 
For blood, for war, whose issue was their doom, 
To cast wise words among the multitude 
Was flinging fruit to lions ; nor, in hours 
Of civil outbreak, when I knew the twain 
Would each waste each, and bring on both the 

yoke 
Of stronger states, was mine the voice to curb 
The madness of our cities and their kings. 

Who ever turn*d upon his heel to hear 
My warning that the tyranny of one 
Was prelude to the tyranny of all? 
My counsel that the tyranny of all 
Led backward to the tyranny of one ! 

This power hath work'd no good to aught 

that lives. 
And these blind hands were useless in their 

wars. 
O therefore that the unfulfiU'd desire. 
The grief for ever born from griefs to be, 
The boundless yearning of the Prophet's 

heart — 
Could that stand forth, and like a statue, 

rear'd 
To some great citizen, win all praise from all 



240 TIRESIAS. 

Who past it, saying, •'That was he!** 

In vain! 
Virtue must shape itself indeed, and those 
Whom weakness or necessity have cramped 
Within themselves, immerging, each, his urn 
In his own well, draw solace as he may. 

Menaceus, thou hast eyes, and I can hear 
Too plainly what full tides of onset sap 
Our seven high gates, and what a weight of 

war 
Rides on those ringing axles! jingle of bits, 
Shouts, arrows, tramp of the hornfooted horse 
That grind the glebe to powder! Stony 

showers 
Of that ear-stunning hail of Ares crash 
Along the sounding walls. Above, below, 
Shock after shock, the song-built towers and 

gates 
Reel, bruised and butted with the shuddering 
War-thunder of iron rams ; and from within 
The city comes a murmur void of joy. 
Lest she be taken captive — maidens, wives. 
And mothers with their babblers of the dawn, 
And oldest age in shadow from the night 
Falling about their shrines before their Gods, 
And wailing **Save us.** 

And they wail to thee ! 
These eyeless eyes, that cannot see thine own, 
See this, that only in thy virtue lies 
The saving of our Thebes ; for, yesternight. 
To me, the great God Ares, whose one bliss 
Ts war, and human sacrifice — himself 
Blood-red from battle, spear and helmet tipt 
With stormy light as on a mast at sea, 



TIRESIAS. 241 

Stood out before a darkness, crying ''Thebes, 
Thy Thebes shall fall and perish, for I loathe: 
The seed of Cadmus — yet if one of these 

By his own hand — if one of these '' 

My son,, 
No sound is breathed so potent to coerce. 
And to conciliate, as their names who dare 
For that sweet mother land which gave them. 

birth 
Nobly to do, nobly to die. Their names. 
Graven on memorial columns, are a song 
Heard in the future ; few, but more than wall 
And rampart, their examples reach a hand 
Far thro' all years, and everywhere they meet 
And kindle generous purpose, and. the strength 
To mould it into action pure as theirs. 

Fairer thy fate than mine, if life's best end 
Be to end well ! and thou refusing this, 
Unvenerable will thy memory be 
While men shall moye the lips: but if thoa 

dare — 
Thou, one of these, the race of Cadmus — then 
No stone is fitted in yon marble girth 
Whose echo shall not tongue thy glorious 

doom. 
Nor in this pavement but shall ring thy name 
To every hoof that clangs it, and the springs. 
Of Dirce laving yonder battle-plain. 
Heard from the roofs by night, will murmur 

thee 
To thine own Thebes, while Thebes thro* thee 

shall stand 
Firm-based with all her Gods. 

The Dragon's cave 

16 



242 TIRESIAS. 

Half hid, they tell me, now in flowing vines — 
Where once he dwelt and whence he roll'd 

himself 
At dead of night — thou knowest, and that 

smooth rock 
Before it, altar-fashion 'd, where of late 
The woman-breasted Sphinx, with wings drawn 

back, 
Folded her lion paws, and looked to Thebes. 
^Vhere blanch the bones of whom she slew, and 

these 
Mixt with her own, because the fierce beast 

found 
A wiser than herself, and dash'd herself 
Dead in her rage : but thou art wise enough, 
Tho' young, to love thy wiser, blunt the curse 
Of Pallas, hear, and tho* I speak the truth 
Believe I speak it, let thine own hand strike 
Thy youthful pulses into rest and quench 
The red God's anger, fearing not to plunge. 
Thy torch of life in darkness, rather — thou 
Rejoicing that the sun, the moon, the stars 
Send no such light upon the ways of men 
As one great deed. 

Thither, my son, and there 
Thou, that hast never known the embrace of 

love, 
Offer thy maiden life. 

This useless hand! 
I felt one warm tear fall upon it. Gone ! 
He will achieve his greatness. 

But for me, 
I would that I were gathered to my rest, 
And mingled with the famous kings of old, 



TIRESIAS. 243 

On whom about their ocean-islands flash 
The faces of the Gods — the wise man's word, 
Here trampled by the populace underfoot, 
There crown 'd with worship — and these eyes 

will find 
The men I knew, and watch the chariot whirl 
About the goal again, and hunters race 
The shadowy lion, and the warrior-kings. 
In height and prowess more than human, strive 
Again for glory, while the golden lyre 
Is ever sounding in heroic ears 
Heroic hymns, and every way the vales 
Wind, clouded with the grateful incense-fume 
Of these who mix all odor to the Gods 
On one far height in one far-shining fire. 



**One height and one far- shining fire'* 

And while I fancied that my friend 
For this brief idyll would require 

A less diffuse and opulent end, 
And would defend his judgment well, 

If I should deem it over nice — 
The tolling of his funeral bell 

Broke on my Pagan Paradise, 
And mixt the dream of classic times. 

And all the phantoms of the dream, 
With present grief, and made the rhymes, 

That miss'd his living welcome, seem 
Like would-be guests an hour too late, 

Who down the highway moving on 
With easy laughter find the gate 

Is bolted, and the master gone. 
Gone into darkness, that full light 

Of friendship! past, in sleep, away 



244 TIRESIAS. 

By night, into deeper night? 

The deeper night? A clearer day 
Than our poor twilight dawn on earth — 

If night, what barren toil to be ! 
What life, so maim'd by night, were worth 

Our living out? Not mine to me 
Remembering all the golden hours 

Now silent, and so many dead, 
And him the last ; and laying flowers, 

This wreath, above his honored head, 
And praying that, when I from hence 

Shall fade with him into the unknown, 
My close of earth's experience 

May prove as peaceful as his own. 



THE WRECK. 

I. 

Hide me, Mother! my Fathers belonged to the 

church of old, 
I am driven by storm and sin and death to the 

ancient fold, 
I cling to the Catholic Cross once more, to the 

Faith that saves, 
My brain is full of the crash of wrecks, and 

the roar of waves, 
My life itself is a wreck, I have sullied a noble 

name, 
I am flung from the rushing tide of the world 

as a waif of shame, 
I am roused by the wail of a child, and awake 

to a livid light. 
And a ghastlier face than ever has haunted a 

grave by night, 
I would hide from the storm without, I would 

flee from the storm within, 
I would make my life one prayer for a soul 

that died in his sin, 
I was the tempter, Mother, and mine was the 

deeper fall; 
I will sit at your feet, I will hide my face> I 

will tell you all. 

245 



246 THE WRECK. 



II. 



He that they gave me to, Mother, a heedless 

and innocent bride — 
I never have wrong'd his heart, I have only 

wounded his pride. 
Spain in his blood and the Jew — dark-visaged 

stately and tall — 
A princelier-looking man never stept thro* a 

Prince's hall. 
And who, when his anger was kindled, would 

venture to give him the nay? 
A man men fear is a man to be loved by the 

women they say. 
And I would have loved him too, if the blos- 
som can doat on the blight. 
Or the young green leaf rejoice in the frost 

that sears it at night; 
He would open the books that I prized, and 

toss them away with a yawn. 
Repelled by the magnet of Art to the which 

my nature was drawn, 
The word of the Poet by whom the deeps of 

the world are stirred 
The music that robes it in language beneath 

and beyond the word ! 
My Shelley would fall from my hands when he 

cast a contemptuous glance 
From where he was poring over his Tables of 

Trade and Finance ; 
My hands, when I heard him coming, would 

drop from the chords or the keys, 
But ever I fail'd to please him, however I 

strove to please — 



THE WRECK. 247 

All day long far-off in the cloud of the city, 

and there 
Lost, head and heart, in the chances of divi- 
dend, consol, and share — 
And at home if I sought for a kindly caress, 

being woman and weak, 
His formal kiss fell chill as a flake of snow on 

the cheek : 
And so, when I bore him a girl, when I held it 

aloft in my joy. 
He look'd at it coldly, and said to me **Pity it 

isn't a boy." 
The one thing given me, to love and to live 

for, glanced at in scorn ! 
The child that I felt I could die for — as if she 

were basely born ! 
I had lived a wild-flower life, I was planted 

now in a tomb ; 
The daisy will shut to the shadow, I closed 

my heart to the gloom ; 
I threw myself all abroad — I would play my 

part with the young 
By the low foot-lights of the world — and I 

caught the wreath that was flung. 

III. 

Mother, I have not— however their tongues 

may have babbled of me — 
Sinn'd thro' an animal vileness, for all but a 

dwarf was he, 
And all but a hunchback too; and I look'd at 

him, first, askance 
With pity — not he the knight for an amorous 

girl's romance! 



248 THE WRECK. 

Tho' wealthy enough to have bask'd in the 

light of a dowerless smile, 
Having lands at home and alDroad in a rich 

West-Indian isle; 
But I came on him once at a ball, the heart of 

a listening crowd — 
Why, what a brow was there ! he was seated — 

speaking aloud 
To women, the flower of the time, and men at 

the helm of state — 
Flowing with easy greatness and touching on 

all things great. 
Science, philosophy, song — till I felt myself 

ready to weep 
For I knew not what, when I heard that voice, 

— as mellow and deep 
As a psalm by a mighty master and peal'd 

from an organ, — roll 
Rising and falling — for, Mother, the voice was 

the voice of the soul ; 
And the sun of the soul made day in the dark 

of his wonderful eyes. 
Here was the hand that would help me, would 

Ileal me — the heart that was wise ! 
And he, poor man, when he learnt that I hated 

the ring I wore, 
He helpt me with death, and he heal'dme with 

sorrow for evermore. 

IV. 

For I broke the bond. That day my nurse 

had brought me the child. 
The small sweet face was flush'd, but it coo'd 

to the Mother and smiled. 



THE WRECK. 249 

** Anything ailing/' I ask'd her, **with baby?'' 

She shook her head, 
And the Motherless Mother kiss'd it, and 

turn'd in her haste and fled. 



Low warm winds had gently breathed us away 
from the land — 

Ten long sweet summer days upon deck, sit- 
ting hand in hand — 

When he clothed a naked mind with the wis- 
dom and wealth of his own, 

And I bow'd myself down as a slave to his 
intellectual throne, 

When he coin'd into English gold some treas- 
ure of classical song. 

When he flouted a statesman's error, or flamed 
at a public wrong. 

When he rose as it were on the wings of an 
eagle beyond me, and past 

Over the range and the change of the world 
from the first to the last. 

When he spoke of his tropical home in the 
canes by the purple tide, 

And the high star-crowns of his palms on the 
deep-wooded mountain-side, 

And cliffs all robed in lianas that dropt to the 
brink of his bay, 

And trees like the towers of a minster, the 
sons of a winterless day. 

**Paradise there!" so he said, but I seem'd in 
Paradise then 

With the first great love I had felt for the first 
and greatest of men, 



250 THE WRECK. 

Ten long days of summer and sin — if it must 

be so — 
But days of a larger light than I ever again 

shall know — 
Days that will glimmer, I fear, thro* life to my 

latest breath; 
*'No frost there,*' so he said, **as in truest 

Love no Death." 

VI. 

Mother, one morning a bird with a warble 
plaintively sweet 

Perch *d on the shrouds, and then fell flutter- 
ing down at my feet ; 

I took it, he made it a cage, we fondled it, 
Stephen and I, 

But it died, and I thought of the child for a 
moment, I scarce know why. 

VII. 

But if sin be sin, not inherited fate, as many 

will say, 
My sin to my desolate little one found me at 

sea on a day. 
When her orphan wail came borne in the 

shriek of a growing wind, 
And a voice rang out in the thunders of Ocean 

and Heaven **Thou hast sinn*d. '* 
And down in the cabin were we, for the tower- 
ing crest of the tides 
Plunged on the vessel and swept in a cataract 

off from her sides, 
And ever the great storm grew with a howj 

and a hoot of the blast 



THE WRECK. 251 

In the rigging, voices of hell — then came the 

crash of the mast. 
•*The wages of sin is death,*' and then I began 

to weep, 
**I am the Jonah, the crew should cast me into 

the deep. 
For ah God, what a heart was mine to forsake 

her even for you. ' ' 
•* Never the heart among women," he said, 

** more tender and true.'* 
•*The heart! not a mother's heart, when I left 

my darling alone." 
•'Comfort yourself, for the heart of the father 

will care for his own. ' * 
**The heart of the father will spurn her," I 

cried, *'for the sin of the wife, 
The cloud of the mother's shame will enfold 

her and darken her life. " 
Then his pale face twitch'd: '*0 Stephen, I 

love you, I love you, and yet" — 
As I leaned away from his arms — ** would God, 

we had never met!" 
And he spoke not — only the storm ; till after 

a little, I yearn'd 
For his voice again, and he call'd to me **Kiss 

me!" and there — as I turn* d — 
''The heart, the heart!" I kiss'd him, I clung 

to the sinking form. 
And the storm went roaring above us, and he 

— was out of the storm. 

VIII. 

And then, then. Mother, the ship stagger'd 
under a thunderous shock, 



252 THE WRECK. 

That shook us asunder, as if she had struck 

and crash 'd on a rock; 
For a huge sea smote every soul from the 

decks of the Falcon but one ; 
All of them, all but the man that was lash'd to 

the helm had gone ; 
And I fell — and the storm and the days went 

by, but I knew no more — 
Lost myself — lay like the dead by the dead on 

the cabin floor, 
Dead to the death beside me, and lost to the 

loss that was mine. 
With a dim dream, now and then, of a hand 

giving bread and wine. 
Till I woke from the trance, and the ship stood 

still, and the skies were blue. 
But the face I had known, O Mother, was not 

the face that I knew. 

IX. 

The strange misfeaturing mask that I saw so 

amazed me, that I 
Stumbled on deck, half mad. I would fling 

myself over and die ! 
But one — he was waving a flag — the one man 

left on the wreck — 
* * Woman ' ' — he graspt at my arm — * * stay there * ' 

— I crouched on the deck — 
**We are sinking, and yet there's hope: look 

yonder,'* he cried, **a sail'* 
In a tone so rough that I broke into passionate 

tears, and the wail 
Of a beaten babe, till I saw that a boat was 

nearing us — then 



THE WRECK. 253 

All on a sudden I thought, I shall look on the 
child again. 

X. 

They lower'd me down the side, and there in 

the boat I lay 
With sad eyes fixt on the lost sea-home, as v/e 

glided away, 
And I sigh'd, as the low dark hull dipt under 

the smiling main, 
**Had I stayed with him, I had now — with him 

— been out of my pain. " 

XI. 

They took us aboard: the crew were gentle, 
the captain kind : 

But I was the lonely slave of an often-wander- 
ing mind : 

For whenever a rougher gust might tumble a 
stormier wave, 

**0 Stephen,'* I moan'd, *'I am coming to thee 
in thine Ocean-grave." 

And again, when a balmier breeze curl'd over 
a peacefuller sea, 

I found myself moaning again **0 child, I am 
coming to thee ! * * 

XII. 

The broad white brow of the Isle — that bay 

with the colored sand — 
Rich was the rose of sunset there, as we drew 

to the land ; 
All so quiet the ripple would hardly blanch 

into spray 



254 THE WRECK. 

At the feet of the cliff; and I pray'd — *'my 

child'* — for I still could pray — 
**May her life be as blissfully calm, be never 

gloomed by the curse 
Of a sin, not hers!" 

Was it well with the child? 

I wrote to the nurse 

Who had borne my flower on her hireling 

heart ; and an answer came 
Not from the nurse — nor yet to the wife — to 

her maiden name! 
I shook as I open'd the letter — I knew that 

hand too well — 
And from it a scrap, dipt out of the ''deaths*' 

in a paper, fell. 
'*Ten long sweet summer days*' of fever, and 

want of care ! 
And gone — that day of the storm — O Mother, 

she came to me there. 

THE END. 



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6. Autobiography of Benjamin 

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40. Evangeline Longfellow 

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46. Gold Dust Yonge 

49. Heroes and Hero Worship, Carlyle 

50. Hiawatha Longfellow 

51. House of Seven Gables 

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57. Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow 
Jerome 

58. Idylls of the King Tennyson 

59. Imitation of Christ 

Thos. a'Kempis 

60. In Memoriam Tennyson 

64. John Halifax Mulock 

67. Kept for the Master's Use 

Havergal 

68. Kidnapped Stevenson 

69. King of the Golden River.. Ruskin 

73. Laddie 

74. Lndy of the Lake Scott 

75. Lnlla Rookh Moore 

76. Let Us Follow Him.. .Sienkiewicz 

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88. Marmion Scott 

89. Mosses from an Old Manse 

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107. Queen of the Air Ruskin 

110. Rab and His Friends. . . Brown 

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112. Reveries of a Bachelor 

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113. Rollo in Geneva Abbott 

114. Rollo in Holland Abbott 

115. Rollo in London Abbott 

118. Rollo in Naples Abbott 

117. Rollo in Paris Abbott 

118. Rollo in Rome Abbott 

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120. Rollo in Switzerland... Abbott 

121. Rollo on the Atlantic. ..Abbott 

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Human nature is less of a mystery after the reading of this book. 

*'Only a woman of genius could produce such a remarkable 
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THREE WOMEN. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 

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Her latest and greatest poem. This marvelous narrative of 
thrilling interest depicts the lives of three good and beautiful 
women in every phase of weakness^ passion^ pride^ Zove, sympathy 
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AN AMBITIOUS MAN. (Prose.) 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

** Vivid realism stands forth from every page of this fascinating 
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A choice collection of recitations, specially compiled for read- 
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"Hername is a household word. Her great power lies in depict- 
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A grand epic of the exploits and massacre of the immortal 
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MEN, WOMEN AND EMOTIONS. (Prose.) 12mo. heavy 

enameled paper cover. 50 cents ; English cloth, $1.00. 

A skillful analysis of social habits, customs and follies. 

"Her fame has reached all parts of the world, and her popular- 
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THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF NOD. (Poems, songs and 

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PRESENTATION SETS. Poems of Passion, Maurine, 
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ELLA WHEELER WILCOX'S WORKS are for sale by leading; book- 
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